


Tale as Old as Pines

by Anonymous



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Gen, I Am One Thousand Years Late To This Fandom, but i do not care
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The villagers of Gravity Falls wonder about the woods that grow thick and dark beyond the town. They whisper about the mysterious, long-abandoned castle behind the trees. And they fear the beast that cries, night after night, into the darkness.(Or: the Beauty and the Beast AU that's only 4 years late.)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 26
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired alongside others by [Sai's lovely artwork.](https://artsycrapfromsai.tumblr.com/post/140606261820/)

Freezing wind sliced through Stan’s coat. 

He tugged a branch aside, fighting through the forest brush. The moment he let go, it snapped back and hit his shoulder. Rainwater splashed his neck, but he barely noticed. He’d been soaked to the skin for near an hour now, and a little more water wouldn’t hurt. Well, it might send him to sickness in a few days, but he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered right now, nothing except the sodden, crumpled letter in his pocket.

The trees began to thin, and at long last his heart jumped with hope. 

Without sunlight and shrouded by rain, it was difficult to make out the scene beyond the forest, but at long last Stan found himself face to face with an iron gateway twice his height. It was open, to his surprise. A locked gate would have been a mild inconvenience at worst, but he was still grateful to save time. The sooner he got inside, the better. He could barely feel his toes.

Rain still thick in his view, Stan pushed past the iron doorway. It opened to what could have been a beautiful garden, if not for the sprawling weeds and the torrential rain that threw the dirt into rivers. The potential gardens framed a cobblestone path, slick with rain, that zigzagged and curved across the grass before reaching a set of enormous, wooden, gold-embossed doors. And surrounding the doors was a castle, high and proud, dark and uninviting. 

Stan shivered.

He pulled out the letter and carefully unfolded it. The parchment turned to pulp under his fingers, but the words were still visible, marked with a thick, frantic stroke of a quill. 

_PLEASE COME._

Stan read the last word just as the rain swallowed it up, and the parchment dissolved through his fingers. He took a damp, frigid breath, staring at the door. There was nothing behind him but forest and hunger. He had nothing with which to fight them but his exhausted, paper-thin coat. 

Fear and shame waited behind the door. He was no stranger to either, but they hadn’t been the death of him yet.

“He’s family,” he told himself, his voice drowned out by the storm. “He loves you.”

He curled his soaking fingers into a fist and knocked on the door. 

Nothing happened. 

Rain rattled the stained glass windows, pelting them so hard that Stan wondered how they hadn’t already shattered. As he shifted anxiously, his shoes slipped on the cobblestone path and he had to grab a handful of the vines that climbed the stone walls of the castle to keep himself upright. The leaves shook rainwater onto his face, blurring his vision.

The door opened at last.

A man appeared, and for a fraction of a second Stan smiled. And then the man brandished a crossbow into the night, shoving the arrowhead between Stan’s eyes.

 _“Who is it?”_ the man demanded. His voice hadn’t changed in ten years. _“Have you come to steal my eyes?”_

“Steal your—” Stan pushed the weapon away. “No. I haven’t.” 

His brother lowered the crossbow, unsurprisingly. His finger hadn’t even been on the trigger. He took a sudden step forward and grabbed Stan’s face, prying his right eyelids apart. 

“Ah— _hey—”_ Stan shoved him away. “Ford, what the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Ford said quickly, looking away. “Nothing. Did anyone follow you here?” 

Stan glanced back at the forest, which shook with the storm winds. “No,” he said. “No one.” 

Ford nodded. “Good. Here.” And he reached into his coat, searching for something.

Stan took the opportunity to look at him properly. Ford was somehow now thinner and iller than Stan was. It didn’t make sense. Stan was the one who’d survived the village streets for a decade, yet Ford was half his size. The storm winds alone could probably knock him off his feet.

Well, even if he wasn’t well in the body, Ford was certainly well cared for. His coat was made of thick, dark wool, and the fur lining around the neck made Stan shiver with envy. Ford’s hands were tucked safely behind a pair of black leather gloves, and Stan knew for a fact that they'd been custom-made. No merchant off the road would waste the leather on a six-fingered pair, just on the off-chance they’d meet a buyer. No, Ford had ordered those from a tradesman, and likely paid for them without a second thought. 

Stan stuffed his numb hands into his sodden pockets. 

“I’ve made some mistakes, Stanley,” Ford said. He glanced to and fro. “I don’t know who I can trust.” 

“Easy there,” Stan said, finally smiling at his brother. It was easier to ignore the jealousy when he had compassion to replace it. “You can trust me.”

“I know,” Ford said, nodding and standing at attention. “That’s why I called you here. I want you to take this.” And from his coat he pulled out a book.

The cover was a deep shade of maroon— the fabric had probably cost a fortune to dye. Four corners shone with golden caps that made Stan’s stomach turn. And pressed against the front cover was a golden six-fingered hand. The gold was pressed thin enough that it looked like fabric itself. 

Ford handed it to Stan. 

Stan turned it over and back again. The golden hand reflected in the moonlight, mirroring his disbelief. 

“This is for me? You— you want me to have this?” The food this would buy, the clothes, the warmth— 

“No,” Ford said sharply. “I want you to _take it._ Far away. To the furthest kingdom you can find. To the darkest, most desolate desert on the continent. To the coldest, most abandoned mountain at the edge of the world. Bury it somewhere, safe from weather’s harm. And don’t tell a soul.”

Raindrops pelted the front cover. They bounced off, some landing and pearling into spheres before sliding off the sides. Torchlight caught the golden hand, and the golden hand caught Stan’s growing disenchantment.

“Are you _serious?”_ He whacked the book with the back of his hand. 

Ford winced. His fingers twitched to grab it, but he kept it at his side. “Be careful with that,” he scolded.

Stan wasn’t listening. “That’s _it?_ That’s why you called me here? Just so you could ask me to hide your fortune away?” He flicked the golden hand, denting it right in the center. 

Ford winced again, then scowled.

“Stanley, this is much deeper than you can—”

“You won’t even let me in, will you?” Stan took a step forward, anger overtaking disappointment. It felt better. “Here I was, thinking I’d get to warm my hands by a fire, eat a hot meal, maybe take a bath for the first time in—” 

“There isn’t _time,”_ Ford barked. “This is more important than— than _bathing.”_

“That’s easy for you to say,” Stan snapped. “I bet you haven’t gone a day without washing your hair, you ungrateful—” 

Lightning lit the sky, throwing the forest into horrible focus. The trees wrestled, leaves sharp and wet and angry. A moment later and thunder split the air in twain. The ground shook, and Stan’s feet once again lost their grip on the cobblestone. He grabbed the vines again to keep from falling, and the book landed on the river of rainwater below them, splayed open with its spine to the sky.

“I said be _careful_ with that!” Ford shouted, bending down. Stan was quicker; he snatched the book up just as Ford’s fingers brushed the cover.

“Some brother you are!” Stan howled, holding the pages open so Ford would see the surely ruined ink. “You care more about this stupid book than your own family!” He jabbed his finger at the parchment. 

Ford’s angry, self-important retort didn’t come.

His face had gone pale and sallow, his eyes wide and frightened. He wasn’t staring at Stan, but at the pages Stan was brandishing. 

Stan flipped the book. 

The pages were completely dry, displaying Ford’s drawing of a bizarre-looking wheel with strange little symbols surrounding a triangular figure. The writing beside it was small enough that Stan would need more than secondhand torchlight to read it. He watched as rain pelted the parchment but didn’t smear the ink, just pearled into beads and rolled off the edges onto the cobblestone below.

“What the hell…?” Stan stroked his thumb over the page. The ink stayed dry.

“Stanley,” Ford said quietly, voice barely audible over the wind. Stan hadn’t heard his brother sound frightened since they were fifteen. And now here he was, cowering on his knees. Because of a book. “You don’t understand,” Ford said, still not moving. “This is bigger than you.” 

Rage snapped, swallowing any seeds of empathy before they could sprout.

 _“Everything_ is to you, isn’t it?” Stan hissed. “Don’t mind the fact that your own brother trekked a mile through the forest in a storm for you, Ford. Don’t mind the fact that I haven’t been warm since August. Don’t even bother wondering when I last ate, because I’m not as important as your _book!”_ He glared down at the page, at the stupid drawing that meant more to his own brother than he did, at the book that had taken more money to make than Stan had seen in a decade.

Had Ford thought of him at all, since they’d parted?

“You won’t even let me in to sit by your fire,” he said to the drawing. “All you care about is yourself, Ford. And I was an idiot to ever hope that would change.”

Pain met his cheek. Ford was on his feet. 

“You’re calling _me_ selfish?” Ford seethed. “After everything?”

Stan blocked Ford’s next swing with the book. “I’ll call you whatever I want!” he shouted, kicking at Ford’s ankles. “You—” Lightning struck, and he could just make out the first word on the page. “You— _triangulum!”_

Ford tripped over his own feet and landed, hard, inside the doorway. Whatever fight that had possessed him was gone, replaced entirely by fear. 

Spite overtook anger. It felt better.

Stan smirked. He tilted the book to catch more torchlight. _“Triangulum, entangulum!”_

Ford reached backwards and slipped— no doubt his gloves were soaked. He fell to the ground, head hitting the marble floor with a painful-sounding _crack._ A second later he pushed himself upright again and tried again. “Stanley, no—”

Stan stepped into the castle doorway, holding the book up like a sacred torch. _“Vene foris dominus mentium,”_ he read, relishing how each word seemed to stick another dagger of fear into his brother’s heart. Ford hadn’t had to live with fear in his bones for the last ten years. Ford had no idea how it felt to keep fear as an old friend. 

“Stop!” Ford shouted, kicking desperately and uselessly into the air. “Stanley, please—” 

Ford had no idea how it felt to live without the comfort, warmth, and safety of a castle. And if this was the closest thing he could feel to real fear, then Stan was going to savor every second of it.

_“Vene foris videntis—”_

_“NO—”_

_“— omnium!”_

Ford’s foot connected with Stan’s chest, winding him completely and throwing him back into the storm. The book flew from his grip as he fell, and he landed hard on the cobblestone. The book landed in the doorway, one cover under the torrential rain, one cover under the safety of the castle roof. 

The air sizzled with energy for a fraction of a second before lightning forked before their eyes, blinding white. It struck the book directly on the spine, igniting it with a deafening _crackle._ Stan cried out, throwing an arm over his eyes to shield himself, and from the inside of the castle he heard Ford shout something indistinguishable.

Just as instantly as it struck, the lightning was gone.

“Ford!” Stan scrambled to his feet, nearly tripping over the perfectly intact book still lying in the doorway. It didn’t matter, not as much as the sound of raw, unhinged agony in his brother’s voice. Was he hurt? Had he been _struck? “FORD!”_

_“Stay away from me!”_

Stan’s feet stuck in place.

All the torches were dead. The castle doors opened to a pitch-black entry hall, and the only thing Stan could see in it was the faint glint of his brother’s glasses.

Stan remembered the day his brother had been given those glasses. He remembered the joy in his brother’s face when he’d looked at his book and realized how much more clearly he could see. And he remembered, ten years ago, the cold, defeated disappointment that had shone through those lenses.

 _“Get out—”_ Ford’s voice was desperate and guttural. _“I never wanted to see you again— get— out—”_

Stan’s anger was tired this time when it came to overtake the disappointment.

He balled his hand into a fist, and—

Lightning struck the book beneath his feet. The cobblestone exploded, blowing the book past the castle doors and throwing Stan into the storm. Rubble pelted his chest and dust filled his lungs, but before he had the chance to cough— 

Something hard and heavy collided with his skull. 

Stan sank to the ground, the night sky turning to ink above him. Raindrops smacked his coat and soaked through to his skin, but the cold couldn’t penetrate more than it already had. The storm couldn’t take anything else away. 

At the edge of his vision he saw the castle doors swing shut behind a curtain of rain. 

It was over, he knew, at last.

* * *

Ford tried to yell, but the air was too thick with electricity and his breath was too thin with fear. 

“Get out,” he repeated to the door that had closed of its own accord. He blinked, and the wood lost its color. The rest of the world followed suit. The rain’s clatter and the wind’s howl disappeared. Ford’s heart trembled.

 _“WELL, WELL, WELL, IS THAT ANY WAY TO TREAT AN OLD FRIEND?”_ said a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. _“YOU REALLY ARE HEARTLESS, SIXER.”_

“Get _out.”_ Ford clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut. You’re not my friend,” he told the air. “And I’m not heartless.”

 _“COULD HAVE FOOLED ME!”_ The voice cackled, high and cruel. It waited expectedly for a moment. _“THAT’S A JOKE."_

“Enough!” Ford dropped his hands and searched the air. “Show yourself, Cipher!” 

As if waiting for his command, a hole in the fabric of space began to tear, three corners pulling in equal, demonic strength until they found form: a triangle, the symbol of the Doorway, of Wisdom, and of the Threat. 

_“SO EAGER TO SEE ME,”_ said the demon, as it grew its arms and legs. It flexed its hands experimentally, and though the only facial feature it bore was a single eye in the center of its body, Ford could sense the creature’s glee. It sent a chill through Ford’s fingers that had nothing to do with the now silent storm outside. 

“Hardly,” Ford growled. “Leave. Now.” It was false bravado and they both knew it. 

_“A TEMPTING OFFER, BUT I THINK I’LL PASS.”_ The demon spun in a lazy circle around his head. _“IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVE COMPANY. I’LL TAKE CARE OF IT!”_ And it pressed its thumb to its forefinger. 

Fear such as Ford had never known before flooded him from scalp to heel. _“NO!”_

 _“NO?”_ The demon raised its eyebrow, fingers still poised.

Ford glanced between the door and the demon. He didn’t know how many chess pieces he had left, but he’d sacrifice every single one of them if it meant Stanley walked away with his life. 

_“YOU SEEMED PRETTY KEEN ON GETTING RID OF HIM A MINUTE AGO,”_ the demon said, lowering its hand. Ford’s heart restarted.

“I didn’t mean I wanted him _dead.”_

The demon shrugged. _“HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR YEARS, FOR ALL YOU KNEW.”_ Ford opened his mouth, but the demon kept going. _“BUT ALL RIGHT, FINE. SINCE HE DID THE COURTESY OF SUMMONING ME, I’LL LET HIM OFF THE HOOK.”_

Ford sank onto the marble floor, relief turning his legs to paper. 

_“MOSTLY.”_

The demon clicked its fingers. 

The air thinned and Ford’s breath died in his throat. The demon laughed, high and cold, and when it began to speak again the very fabric of reality trembled. It was barely a voice at all, more of a sudden, omnipotent telling of words that had always been there, and had only been granted the clarity of speech for the consideration of Ford’s ears. 

_TURN TOOTH TO FANG,_

_TURN NAIL TO CLAW,_

_TURN HOPE TO DUST,_

_AND STRENGTH TO FLAW._

Lightning lit the stained glass, and thunder met it in an instant. The storm returned with sudden force, rain and wind and trees filling the air with noise. Another sound joined them, a pained, tortured cry that began to rise through the din.

_HE PINES FOR LOVE,_

_LONG CAST AROUND,_

_A BEAST HE STAYS,_

_UNTIL IT’S FOUND._

The cry turned to a howl, and the howl turned to a roar. It was inhuman. It was monstrous. It was—

“Stanley!” Ford pushed off the marble floor and got to his feet. _“Stanley!”_ He managed two steps towards the door before the demon stopped him, brandishing a thin black cane threateningly. 

_“NOT SO FAST, SIXER.”_

“What did you do to him?” Ford demanded. He swiped at the cane, but the moment his hand made contact it exploded with pain. He sank to his knees, tearing off his glove and hissing as the leather scalded his palm. He pressed his hand to the marble floor to cool it, and his thumb brushed the soft fabric edge of—

_“WELL, WELL, WELL, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?”_

Ford clutched the journal to his chest with his uninjured hand.

“Stay back!” he shouted.

The demon narrowed its eye. _“I TAKE IT THAT THING’S PRETTY IMPORTANT.”_ It thought for a moment before blinking in sudden clarity. _“HOW ABOUT I MAKE YOU A DEAL, SIXER? HAND OVER THE JOURNAL AND I’LL TURN YOUR BROTHER BACK.”_

So Stanley was alive, just transformed. Ford weighed his options. The journal remained the only source of protection against Cipher. The journal held the keys to the only hope of attack. And if Stanley had just _listened_ for once, it would have kept the only chance of Cipher’s reappearance hidden and unattainable for the rest of time. 

The demon’s hand burst into blue flames.

Ford grit his teeth. 

“Never,” he said, tightening his grip on the journal.

The demon’s eye twisted in delight. It pulled back its hand, which extinguished. _“WOW, YOU REALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT HIM! I LIKE IT.”_

“Don’t twist my words, demon,” Ford snapped.

 _“NOT TWISTING, JUST REPEATING.”_ The demon absently twirled its cane. _“YOUR BROTHER MIGHT BE AN IDIOT, BUT EVEN HE FIGURED THAT ONE OUT.”_

Before Ford could speak, the demon clicked its fingers again. The sound was terrifyingly clear over the cacophony of noise that pounded at the windows. The torches that lined the castle walls burst into cold, blue fire, and Ford’s weight left the marble floor. He reached for the bannister that lined the staircase, but the moment his burned palm hit metal it flared in pain. He yelped, drawing his hand back, and the journal fell from his grip.

It landed in midair, hovering before his eyes. The golden palm ignited in the blue torchlight.

_“WHY DON’T WE MAKE THIS INTERESTING?”_

The demon clapped its hands together, and two journals appeared in thin air, flanking the first on either side. Ford recognized them at once: he’d buried the second in the churchyard behind the school, and hidden the third in— 

“No!” He shouted, as the demon’s hands caught fire again. “Don’t—”

 _“EVEN NOW, YOU’RE MORE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR BOOKS,”_ it said, sounding amused. _“WE’RE KINDRED SPIRITS.”_

“I’m nothing like you,” Ford spat. 

_“WE’LL SEE.”_

And the demon clicked its fingers.

_TEN YEARS ALONE,_

_TEN YEARS APART._

The journals quivered.

_HIS LOVE IS VOID,_

_HE LACKS HIS HEART._

Ford’s palm began to burn. He clenched his hand into a fist, and suddenly realized he couldn’t. A shout of horror left his throat as he saw his fingers— as he saw _through_ his fingers. He couldn’t move them because they weren’t there. Before he could blink, his hand was gone completely. Before he could speak, his wrist— 

_UNTIL HIS BROTHER_

_BREAKS THE SPELL,_

The journals began to glow; Ford could see the same blue fire from the demon’s palm surrounding them. He could see how the pages stayed intact despite the open flames. And then he couldn’t see anything. His glasses clattered to the floor below, the left lens shattering on impact. Thunder boomed, but Ford’s ears were absent to hear it.

_BETWEEN THESE PAGES_

_HE SHALL DWELL._

Silence followed. There was no final strike of lightning, no final clap of thunder. The trees ceased their fight. There was nothing but rain, sweeping and somber. There was nothing but wind, hushed and reverent. And then there was nothing but a long, anguished howl that rang through the trees, through the mountains, and through the village below. 

And for the first time, the residents of Gravity Falls wondered about the woods and the fabled castle beneath the trees. And they began to fear the beast that cried, night after night, into the darkness.


	2. Into The Woods

* * *

_30 Years Later_

* * *

“Excuse me?” 

Counting his hair, Dipper was taller than the bakery counter. Not counting his hair, he wasn’t. 

“Hello?” he tried again. He stood on his tiptoes and grabbed the edge of the table. “Is anyone—” 

_“PIES!”_

Dipper yelped, losing both his grip and his balance. He landed on the floor in a heap, his hat falling right off his head. He grabbed it and hurriedly tugged it back over his forehead, got to his feet, and dusted himself off. 

“Mabel, seriously,” he said, folding his arms. His twin sister was bouncing on the balls of her feet, staring up in awe at the stacks of bread loaves, rolls, and mouth-watering pies behind the glass. A jar on the counter held half a dozen golden baguettes, no doubt fresh from the oven. Dipper ignored how his stomach ached at the smell of fresh yeast and frowned at his sister. “You can’t just _yell_ like that. We have to make a good first impression.” 

Mabel rolled her eyes. “Impression, schminpression,” she singsonged, and cupped her hands to her mouth. _“HELLO? BAKERY PEOPLE?”_

“Shh!” Dipper grabbed Mabel’s wrist just in time to keep her from grabbing a baguette out of the jar. “Mabel—” 

“Well, hello there!” 

The twins yelped, grabbing each other’s arms. In the span of a split second, a woman had appeared out of thin air behind the counter. She towered over them, though that didn’t say much. Her hair was pinned into a pile atop her head, adding at least a foot to her stature, and for a second Dipper thought she was winking at them, but her right eye didn’t reopen. Her left eye glanced between the two of them curiously. 

Stitched across an apron that had lost its color years ago was the name _Susan._

Catching his breath, Dipper let go of his sister and cleared his throat. “Hello ma’am,” he said politely. “We need some directions—” 

“We need _all of those pies!”_ Mabel interrupted, pointing at the stack of them. Dipper caught a whiff of fruit, sugar, and pastry dough. His stomach ached again. 

“Sure thing, cuties!” Susan opened the glass case, humming to herself. “You’re lucky, I usually sell out of these by noon.” 

“Wait, wait, wait—” Dipper waved his arms, and the woman stopped, a pie in either hand. “I’m sorry, we’re not here to buy stuff.” 

“Awh, what,” Mabel pouted.

“Mabel, we _need_ to get you some new shoes,” Dipper said firmly. Mabel stopped bouncing. “Sorry,” Dipper told Susan. “Your, uh, your pies look nice, but we really just need directions.” 

“Oh.” Susan blinked. She set the pies back down and shut the case. “Well, where are you little cuties off to?” 

Dipper pulled out the letter from his coat and consulted it. “We’re trying to find someone called Fiddleford,” he said. “Can’t be too hard, it’s a weird name and a small town.” 

“Friend of yours?” 

“He’s supposed to be a family friend, I think,” Dipper said. He turned to Mabel. “What did mom and dad say?”

“He knew someone who knew our grandpa who knows our parents!” Mabel beamed. “And they know _us._ Because they’re our parents.”

“Hmm.” Susan tapped her chin. “Fiddleford, you say? Does he have a last name?” 

“Uh—” 

Mabel snatched the letter out of Dipper’s hands and, after a moment’s searching, stabbed her finger into the parchment. “There! McGucket.” 

“As in Old Man McGucket?” Susan raised an eyebrow. “The crazy hick who lives by the woods?”

Dipper sighed. “That’s encouraging.” 

* * *

Newcomers must have been something of a marvel to the small village of Gravity Falls, because they couldn’t take two steps without someone whispering, following, or pointing at them.

“They’ve probably just never seen twins before,” Mabel said, when Dipper lost his patience with a gaggle of children that had tailed them for two minutes straight. “Don’t take it personally.” 

“Mabel, they’re pointing at us. How am I not supposed to take this personally.” 

“Like this!” Mabel stuck her hands on her hips. _“Lah, lah, lah, I’m Dipper Pines and I don’t care what anyone thinks about me! Also, I’m a nerd and I like books and I know what numbers are—”_

“All right, all right, I get it.” Dipper shoved her arm, but not too hard. “Can we please just focus on finding this guy?” He sighed. “I mean, I don’t have high hopes, but if he has a house with a bed I’ll be happy.” 

“If he has a house with _two_ beds I’ll be happy,” Mabel said, shoving him back. 

“Yeah, yeah."

After half an hour of searching, they stopped to rest in the center of town. The handful of dirt roads that lined the village all curved around a circular stone pavilion, in the center of which sat a dilapidated fountain overgrown with moss. Dipper sat on the stone edge to reread their parents’ letter while Mabel fished for spare coins. 

“Why couldn’t she have given us an address, or something?” he muttered, kicking his legs restlessly. “Just that he ‘lives by the woods?’ This whole town is ‘by the woods,’ how is that supposed to help?”

Mabel came up for air, brandishing a copper piece. “Success! _Now_ can we go back and get pies?”

“No.” Dipper didn’t look up from the letter. “You need shoes.” 

“But shoes are _boring.”_

“You know what’s also boring? Having safe feet.” 

Mabel blew a raspberry and dove back into the fountain, splashing water all over Dipper’s arm. He sighed, dried his arm as best he could with his sleeve, and was about to turn the letter upside down to triple-check for hidden messages when someone cleared their throat and he looked up. 

A boy, he couldn’t be older than ten, was standing by the edge of the fountain. He was dressed to the nines in a baby-blue suit that not only looked perfectly tailored, but recently cleaned. His hair was neatly fixed up in a coiff that couldn’t possibly be natural, and he kept his hands tucked politely behind his back. He blinked owlishly— though Dipper had never seen an owl with lashes quite that long.

“I couldn’t help overhearing you talk about our lil’ old Lazy Susan’s pies,” the boy said. He blinked a few times, smiling wide. “Am I correct in assuming you’ve never had the pleasure of eatin’ one?”

“Uh,” Dipper said. “Yeah.” 

“Well, heavens,” said the boy, pressing his hand to his chest like Dipper had confessed to murder. “Let’s fix that right now!”

He trotted off down the street they’d come, and returned not two minutes later with a pie in each hand. 

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meetin’ y’all,” he said as he handed them to Dipper. “Name’s Gideon. I live in that cute lil’ townhouse just up the road. The one with the fence and the garden and the golden statue of widdle ol' me.”

“You have a statue of yourself?” Dipper asked, carefully setting the pies down on the side of the fountain so they’d be safe from Mabel’s splashing.

Gideon shrugged sheepishly. “Well, one of these nice townspeople happened to make it for me, and I couldn’t just say _no,_ now, could I?” 

“I… guess not.” Dipper tugged awkwardly at his sleeves. A small crowd had begun to form around the fountain. Half them were pointing at his sister and him, which was nothing new, but the other half seemed much more focused on Gideon.

“Anyway, who might you be?” Gideon beamed, and his hair caught a ray of sunlight through the trees. Dipper tried not to look at it directly. “Forgive me for bein’ so forward, it’s just that we don’t get many visitors up here in our lil’ old town.”

“Uh. I’m Dipper,” said Dipper. “And this is my sister— Mabel, oh my gosh—” 

He grabbed Mabel by the collar of her coat and wrenched her out of the fountain. She gasped for breath, and then held out another copper piece. “Worth it!” she said, and then froze in place, noticing the new person in their midst. 

“Mabel, this is—” 

“Gideon,” said Gideon, holding out his hand. “Gideon Gleeful, at your service. And may I say what a pleasure it is to meet you.” 

Dipper resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Mabel didn’t even notice. She took Gideon’s hand, which was about as big as her thumb. He bent to kiss it, but the moment his lips made contact Mabel began shaking his hand hard enough to knock him off his feet.

“Nice to meet you too! I’m Mabel, and this is my brother Dipper, and we’re trying to find someone in town except we’re totally lost because we’re never been here before and everything kind of looks the same and _oh my gosh is that pie?”_ Abandoning the handshake, Mabel took a pie in either hand and simultaneously bit into both. 

“Enchanting,” Gideon breathed, catching his balance on the side of the fountain.

Dipper cleared his throat, and the boy jumped like he’d forgotten Dipper was there. “Maybe you can help us,” Dipper said, stuffing their parents’ letter back into his pocket. “We’re looking for someone called Fiddleford McGucket. Do you know him?”

Gideon nodded at once. “Oh, sure, the crazy old man who lives by the woods. I can take you there if you like, free of charge.” 

“Free of— what?”

Ignoring this, Gideon held his hand out to Mabel again. She took it, somehow managing to hold both of the pies in her other hand. 

“Ooh, so formal,” she cooed, dipping into her best impression of a curtsey.

Gideon’s smile was sickly sweet. “Allow me to lead the way, my peach dumplin’.” 

Dipper wrinkled his nose at the epithet, but Mabel just giggled. Dipper forced himself to stay quiet. The important thing right now was finding this McGucket, so if Gideon could help them do that— and if Mabel was happy— then he had nothing to grouse about. 

Gideon walked them straight out of town, past the school, past the churchyard, past the library— Dipper made a mental note to come back there as soon as they’d found McGucket— and down a trail into the trees. 

“Uh,” Dipper said, looking over his shoulder at the town that was quickly disappearing behind tree trunks. “I thought you said he lived _by_ the woods, not in them.” 

“Of course, y’all are new here,” Gideon said. He stopped in a little clearing and gestured at the forest around them. It looked normal at first glance, and even more normal at second glance. The trees were broadly spaced apart, leaving ample room for walking. The grass was flat along the path they were walking, framed by the occasional flat rock or thicket of ferns. All in all it was very scenic.

“See,” Gideon said, “this ain’t the _woods._ This here’s just the trees.” 

Mabel cocked her head to the side. “Wha…?”

Gideon pointed north, towards the trail. “Out there, now, where the tree trunks grow thicker’n you can reach around, and the leaves are the size of your head? That there’s the _real_ woods.” He shivered dramatically. “No one knows what’s really out there. Some say there’s another world hidden behind the trees. Other folks talk of a castle— there’s the old legend that the town used to be a kingdom, course. The woods hold many mysteries, none of ‘em explainable.” He paused, Dipper assumed for dramatic effect, and then lowered his voice to a whisper. “But on stormy nights, you can hear the monster what lives in there, bayin’ at the wind.” 

A breeze kicked up the leaves at their feet. Mabel hugged her coat over her chest. Dipper had to try very hard not to roll his eyes. 

“So parents tell their kids about a spooky monster to keep them out of the forest?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Just you wait,” Gideon hissed, wiggling his fingers dramatically. “You’ll try to sleep one rainy night and you’ll hear it. Somewhere out there in the woods. Howling. Craving its next kill. Stalking unwary trespassers through the brush until the moment is right to— _oh,_ look, we’re here.”

Dipper skidded to a halt just in time to avoid crashing into Mabel’s back. If Gideon hadn’t stopped them, he’d have walked straight past McGucket’s house. 

It was really less of a house and more of a collection of wood that had, at one point, resembled a house. The wooden planks spelled out the outline of four walls, and a large slab of moldy wood balanced on top, serving as a roof. It was a shelter by the loosest definition of the word. Dipper didn’t think it would do them much good against anything other than a light mist.

He shook his head to stem his worries. Gideon’s talk of storms had him paranoid, that was all. It was June, they wouldn’t see a storm cloud for months. And hopefully by the time autumn came, their parents would call them home again and they could leave this strange forest town behind.

Hopefully.

“Well, here y’are,” Gideon said, throwing a showman’s arm out at McGucket’s house. “If y’ever need my services again, you know where to find me!” He began to trot away, but spun back after a few steps. “Oh, and Miss Mabel, if you’d like a tour of the town tomorrow, I’d be ever so happy to provide.” 

He dipped his head in a bow, and Dipper coughed to hide his laughter.

 _“Oh-shon-tay,”_ Mabel said, bowing back and giggling. Gideon giggled back.

He waggled his fingers in what was probably supposed to be a wave, though it looked more like he was discovering the fact that he had fingers at all for the first time, and waddled back through the trees. After a minute, he was out of sight. 

“He’s so _fancy,”_ Mabel sighed. 

“He’s something,” Dipper muttered. “Geez. Look at this place.” He pointed to the side of McGucket’s house, where a mass of rusty metal lay discarded in a pile. “What is that stuff?” 

“Junk!” Mabel gasped. “Cool!” 

Dipper had to hold her around the waist to keep her from diving into the pile of debris. “Mabel, again with the first impressions. We’re gonna live here, we can’t just show up and start rifling through his stuff.” He groaned. “Besides, you heard what the people in town said, he’s crazy.” 

Mabel shrugged. “Maybe he’ll be the fun kind of crazy.” They walked to what was probably the door. It was hard to tell. “You know, like—” She waved her arms goofily, pitching her voice down. “ _Craaaaaazy.”_

Dipper knocked on the door. It swung inwards after the first hit. His knuckles came back damp from the moss, and he wiped them on his shirt. “Uh,” he said. “Hello?” 

_“Git! Git! Stay back, gremloblins!”_

Dipper tackled Mabel to the ground just in time— a frying pan swung through the air, just barely grazing his ear. A man had emerged from the shack, barely as tall as they were. A tattered, wide-brimmed hat balanced on his head, his beard reached to his feet, and his vacant, manic eyes faced two different directions.

“Nope, I think he’s normal crazy,” Dipper muttered. Mabel nodded. “Hey!” Dipper yelled. “Mister McGucket? Could you—” He ducked to avoid the frying pan again. “Could you stop that— we’re not grem— did you say grem _loblins?”_

McGucket narrowed his eyes, holding the frying pan at the ready. “Are you gnomes?” 

“What— no.” 

“Vampires?” 

“No! We’re just humans!” Dipper said, holding his hands up. “Normal humans!”

McGucket blinked, one eye at a time. And then he threw the frying pan over his shoulder. “Good enough for me! I trust you completely!” He stuck his hands on his hips. “Come on in, normal human children. Are you children? You look smaller’n the folks I usually see.”

“We’re not _kids,”_ Dipper grumbled, following Mabel inside.

She punched his arm. “Dipper, we’re twelve, it counts.”

“We’re almost thirteen.”

“But we’re still definitely twelve.” 

Ignoring her, Dipper took in the inside of McGucket’s shack. It looked even shabbier from the inside, if that were possible. The walls were made of the same molding, moss-covered wood as the door. The furniture was an assortment of what looked like old, broken-down junk that had been repurposed into chairs, tables, and shelves, covered in the same rust from the junk pile outside. The floor under their feet was damp and littered with dirt, the whole place smelled like mildew and damp wood, and the only light came from a handful of oil lamps scattered around the place.

It was still better than nothing.

Dipper dragged a hand down his face. “Look. Mister McGucket.”

“That’s m’name!” McGucket beamed. Probably. It was hard to tell with the beard. 

“I, uh, can’t believe I’m saying this, but we came here to live with you.” Dipper pulled out the letter. “I think you know someone from our family?” 

McGucket took the letter and read it carefully. He frowned, bringing it close to his face, and then without warning he stuffed the letter into his mouth.

Dipper lunged for it, but Mabel held him back by the waist. “It’s not worth it,” she hissed. “Look at his old-man spit.” 

Dipper looked. “Good call.”

McGucket wiped his mouth with his beard, smacked his lips, and then stared at them like he’d forgotten they were there. “You kids say you’re working age?” 

“Uh,” Dipper said. “In a few months, but—” 

“Great! I daresay I need another few hands around this place. You can stay in the shed out back.” McGucket pointed to a door at the back of the house. “It’s the safest place in the house.” 

“Safe,” Mabel said. "Safe is good."

“— so it’s where I keep my most dangerous inventions!” McGucket finished proudly, “to keep them safe from harm.” He slapped his knee and cackled as he led them to the back door. “Nearabout lost my last robut to the gnomes.”

“Gnomes,” Dipper said flatly. “Right.”

Dinner was possum pie with a side of ‘redneck caviar,’ whatever that was. Dipper managed to scrape his whole serving down a large knothole in the floorboards under the table, and pretended he didn’t hear at least three different woodland creatures scrambling to eat it. Mabel insisted she was full already, and showed off the mass of crumbs on her coat as proof.

“Y’know,” Dipper said, when they’d settled into the shed for bed. It was warm enough outside that they could use their coats for bedrolls, and Dipper’s hat served as a decent pillow. “As oddly creepy as Gideon was, I’m glad he at least gave us some food.”

“He’s not creepy,” Mabel pouted. She propped herself up on her elbows. “He’s sweet!” 

Dipper rolled his eyes. He flopped onto his back and folded his arms over his head. “Well, you have fun touring the town with him tomorrow. _I’m_ gonna go to the library.” He sighed. “Maybe they’ll let me live in the kid’s section.”

* * *

The next morning they woke to the sound of something heavy hitting something metal. Dipper blinked awake, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and squinted to see McGucket hunched over a work table. Scattered around him on the table and the floor was an assortment of tools and spare junk, none of which he seemed to notice.

Either McGucket didn’t remember that he’d invited them to sleep in his shed, or he saw no problem with stirring up a racket at an ungodly hour, but there was no going back to sleep, not with the new background noise of clanging, banging, and disjointed rambling.

Mabel didn’t mind in the slightest. She leapt out of bed, singing to herself. “Dipper, what do you think?” She held up her sweater. Once upon a time it had been a vibrant red. Now, it was pink. “Will Gideon think this is too tacky?”

“Mabel, he’s not gonna care what you wear,” Dipper groaned, turning over onto his stomach. He held his coat over his ears, trying desperately to block out the noise. It was a losing battle. He sighed, accepting the fact that he wasn’t getting another minute of sleep. “Besides,” he said, stretching his arms over his head. “We don’t have any other clothes.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Mabel plopped back onto the floor and tugged on her sweater. “Think I should ask him for more pie?” 

“I guess,” Dipper said. “You probably don’t have to ask, though. It’s a date. People get food on dates.” He blinked. “Right?”

 _“Whaaaaat,”_ Mabel said, staring at Dipper like he’d grown an extra head. “No, it’s not— why— why’d you think it was a date?” Her eyes widened and she grabbed her hair. “It’s not a date. Is it?”

Dipper shrugged. “It kinda sounded like one. He said he wanted to spend the day with you, didn't he?"

“Because we’re new in town and he wants to show me around!” 

“He called you a peach dumpling.” 

“Peaches are— peaches can be friendly.” 

“Mabel, he kissed your hand.”

“I thought that was just a friendly kiss!” Mabel groaned, sinking to her knees beside him. “Oh, no. Dipper, what am I gonna do?” 

Dipper grabbed her shoulder, smiling. “Relax, you can just tell him you’re not interested.” 

“But he’ll get upset!”

“Then that’s his problem,” Dipper said firmly. _“You_ don’t want it to be a date, do you?” 

Mabel sniffed. “No.” 

“Then it doesn’t have to be a date. Anyway, we’re twelve, remember?” He punched Mabel’s arm. “And he’s, like, ten. What is he gonna do, propose?”

Laughing, Mabel shoved Dipper back down to the floor. “You’re right, Dipdop. Thanks.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Dipper grabbed his hat and shoved it back on his head. “Go have fun.” His stomach grumbled. “And actually, if you could get him to buy us more pie, that’d be great.”

“Will do.” Mabel winked and left, the spring back in her step.

Dipper yawned, stretched his arms again, and began to clean up their corner. They didn’t have much, but Mabel’s handful of possessions always managed to take up an entire room. Not wanting to disturb most of it, Dipper just kicked it into a slightly neater pile by the wall, and was about to pull his coat on to head out when McGucket appeared, two inches from his face.

“Good, you didn’t scamper off too,” he said. “All right, time’s a wastin’. I need a new raccoon for my Gobble-dy-wonker machine. The old one’s runnin’ out of steam.” He slapped his knee in frustration. “Darn things just don’t run like they used to. Back in my day, you could hitch a raccoon up to a wheel and the thing’d run for a year if you fed it right. Nowadays they get sore in a week.” 

Dipper stared. 

“Anywho, go and fetch a fresh’un for me,” McGucket said. “There’s a net around here somewhere.” He reached into his beard, rummaged around for a second, and then procured a five-foot long butterfly net. 

Dipper cleared his throat. “Actually, I was gonna head down to the library—” 

_“We got food at home!”_ McGucket’s voice, already shrill, spiked up to a screech. “Now _git,_ and if I see you crawl back here without a good-sized ‘coon, I’ll fire up the old _Shame Bot_ to sic on you. Git. _Git!”_ He began smacking Dipper with the net. 

“Ow— _ow—_ okay, I’ll do it, just— _stop—”_

Dipper grabbed the net and scrambled out of the house. He grumbled under his breath, stomping through the trees until McGucket’s house was out of sight. It didn’t take long, and when the wooden roof was at last out of sight, Dipper stopped at the first stump he saw to catch his breath. 

Nothing was really stopping him from heading into town anyway. That library had looked inviting, even if it was small. And McGucket might forget about the whole raccoon thing by the time he got back, right?

Manic laughter echoed through the trees, accompanied by a rhythmic, metallic clanging. 

Dipper grabbed the butterfly net and set off. 

“Okay,” he said to himself, “raccoons. Where… do raccoons live. Trees, right? Or do they make burrows? Hide in caves?” He nodded. “That sounds right. I think I’ve read about that."

He found a cave after about an hour of searching, but apart from a nest of spiders it was empty. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not, since finding a raccoon would mean having to catch it, and he wasn’t really looking forward to that part. 

As he hiked further north, the trees began to grow thicker and closer together. Dipper found himself distracted every time a new creature crossed his path, and his fingers itched for a pen and parchment so he could write down his findings. There were no forests like this back down in their parents’ village of Piedmont. While evergreen trees had speckled the land back home, Dipper had never seen them so concentrated like they were up here. He could barely see the sky through the blanket of pine needles above, and the sunlight fell in narrow ripples over the forest floor. 

Another hour later, Dipper had a handful of new mosquito bites and a sore ankle from a twisted root. And he still hadn’t seen a single raccoon. 

A bird landed on a nearby stump, surveying him. Its feathers were jet black, save for its speckled white belly and a yellow tuft on its forehead. Its beak was thick and narrowed to a point; it looked like a woodpecker.

“Whoa,” Dipper breathed, taking a careful step forward. “Hey, you’re kinda like me.” 

The bird blinked. And then, in a flash of feathers, it dived. 

Dipper yelped, falling to the forest floor. The bird’s feathers smacked Dipper’s forehead, and its talons closed around Dipper’s hat. 

“Ah— ow— _hey!_ Give that back!” Dipper grabbed the net and swung blindly into the air. The bird dodged effortlessly and soared into the air, taking Dipper’s hat with it. 

“Get back here!” Dipper shouted, running after it. It was slightly encumbered by the extra weight, but the bird still had the advantage of flight. It flews up into the nearest tree and perched on a branch.

“You have no idea who you’re messing with,” Dipper warned it. “I can _climb.”_

But there was a difference between climbing the little White Oak tree back home and climbing a fully grown, bare-trunked Red Fir. At least, it looked like a Red Fir. Dipper had read about them before. Dipper eyed the bare trunk warily, wondering how best to go about climbing it.

The woodpecker eyed him, blinked, and flitted up to a higher branch. 

Dipper threw the net to the ground and leapt. He clamped his arms around the tree trunk and squeezed, but immediately began sliding down. “What—” he grabbed at the bark, but the tree trunk was completely smooth. Dipper landed hard in the dirt, and his head collided with the side of the tree. 

_CLANG._

Startled by the noise, the bird flew off, dropping Dipper’s hat to the ground. He tugged it back over his forehead and got to his feet, then balled his hand into a fist and tapped the tree again.

_CLANG._

“What the…?” He pressed his palm flat against the bark. It was cool to the touch. He squinted. The dappled bark wasn’t bark at all, but a carefully detailed painting. The entire trunk— and by extension, the entire tree— was made of metal. 

Dipper’s thumbnail caught on an edge. He curled his fingers against it, pulled, and a curved panel swung open.

A metal box covered with switches and dials sat inside the trunk. Judging by the dust, this thing had been hidden for years. Dipper reached inside, batted the cobwebs away, and tried to pull it out. It stayed firmly stuck to the tree trunk. 

“What is this thing?” he muttered, poking the machine. He flicked the switch on the side. Nothing happened. He tried the other side, still nothing. He flicked the switch on the top. 

The ground shook behind him. 

“Gah!” Dipper scrambled to pick up the net again, holding it like a weapon in the direction of the sound. But no one was there, save for a stray goat munching on some moss. At the goat’s feet, a small rectangular hole had appeared in the ground. Dipper dropped the net and crouched down by the hole to look inside.

“Whoa.”

Sitting in the hole, covered in more spiderwebs than Dipper had ever seen in his life, was a book. 

Dipper picked it up. He sucked in a breath and blew over the cover, throwing up a cloud of dust. Once it dispersed, the book caught sunlight and Dipper could see it clearly. The cover was a brilliant shade of maroon, torn in patches around the edges. The corners were capped with a dull metal, probably brass. A reading glass hung from the spine by a thin rope. And in the very center was a thinly pressed golden hand.

He tapped the hand with the tip of his finger. 

The gold winked in the sunlight. 

Dipper’s eyes suddenly itched; there had to be dust still in the air. He rubbed them roughly with the heels of his palms, and the book dropped to his lap. He picked it up again quickly, turned it right-side-up, and frowned as he saw the cover.

The hand now bore a thin black number _3._

Hadn’t it been blank a moment ago? Dipper turned the book over, but the back cover was just blank maroon fabric, no gold in sight. There must have just been dirt over the number, that explained why he hadn’t seen it before. Pushing the anomaly out of his mind, Dipper opened the book. 

The pages were blank. 

Brow furrowing, Dipper flipped through them. The pages looked worn enough; they were slightly wrinkled by the edges. Some were ripped, folded, or even burnt. And then, halfway through, the parchment turned neat and tidy. It looked like someone had written through half of the book, then gone back and erased everything. 

“Weird,” Dipper muttered. “What happened to you?”

The page twitched. Ink began to bleed onto the paper, as if an invisible quill were writing on it. The strokes of ink were shaking and faint, but as Dipper watched in amazement, they slowly began to spell out a set of numbers.

_33211543 4121._

Dipper’s mouth fell open. 

“I,” he said. “Hello?” 

Nothing happened. 

“I’m talking to a book,” Dipper said faintly. “What am I doing. I’m insane.” 

The book said nothing.

“I have to show Mabel.” 

He stuffed the book into his coat and jogged back through the forest, using the sun to guide him back down south. It didn’t take long; he’d spent more time wandering in circles than walking in a straight line, and within twenty minutes McGucket’s house was back in sight again.

Dipper wound his way through the field of junk that surrounded the shack, nearly tripping over a glass contraption that was just lying on the grass, waiting to be stepped on. He made it to the door, peered into the window, and sighed in relief when he saw the house was empty. Well, it was empty besides the piles and piles of rusted-over scrap metal that apparently constituted as furniture.

“Crazy old man,” Dipper muttered under his breath.

“Someone say m’name?” 

Dipper winced. McGucket had materialized three feet behind him, with his hands on his hips and his head tilted at a slightly-wrong angle. His hat remained affixed to his head, and Dipper wondered whether he’d fastened it on with glue to keep it from falling off.

“There y’are, did you get a raccoon?” McGucket stuffed a finger into his ear and began digging. “A gnome’ll work too, but they don’t run as fast.”

“Uh,” Dipper said. “Well— no, not exactly, but—” 

_“What’d I say about the Shame Bot?”_ McGucket screeched. _“Git!_ I need that raccoon by tonight, boy!” And he barreled past Dipper into the house and slammed the door shut behind him. The shack wobbled. 

Like _heck_ was Dipper going to waste his time finding a raccoon, not when he had a magic book in his arms. He checked through a knothole in the door to make sure McGucket wasn’t coming back, and then set off on the path leading back to town. 

He opened the book again, and flipped through the pages impatiently, looking for the string of mysterious numbers. They had to mean something. They hadn’t looked random, but he couldn’t put his finger quite on why. The library would probably have a book on secret codes, though, right? 

Dipper reached the end of the book. He stopped in the middle of the dirt path and turned through the pages again, a little more slowly. 

The numbers were gone. 

“But—” Dipper tried again, checking the front and back of each page. “But they were right here,” he whispered. “Where…?”

He turned to the cover of the book. The golden hand was blank yet again. 

“I’m losing my mind,” Dipper said faintly. “I’m actually losing my mind. That’s the only explanation.” 

He was hearing things too. Something faint and high-pitched began to ring in his ear. Dipper winced as it grew stronger and stronger, almost like it was coming straight for him— 

_“Dipper!”_

“Oof—” 

Mabel collided into him with full force, knocking them both onto the dirt. Dipper pushed her off with effort, coughing as dust kicked up into his face. “Mabel, what’s—” 

But Mabel, with tears in her eyes, barreled him over. “Dipper, you were right, Gideon thought it was a date, and I told him I wasn’t really interested but I don’t think he got it, and then we were in the middle of town in front of _everyone_ and he just, he just _gave_ me these—” She held up a small bouquet of roses. “—and I couldn’t just say _no,_ and then one thing led to another and now he wants to marry me, and it’s weird, right, because it turns out he’s not ten, he’s actually _nine,_ and for some reason the whole town was, like, fine with it, and now they’re expecting us _tomorrow_ and I don’t know what to do, and—” She broke off, gasping. “And-I-forgot-he-followed-me-all-the-way-here-Dipper-what-do-I-do—” 

“Mabel, _breathe.”_ Dipper patted his sister’s shoulder. Mabel had a habit of blowing things out of proportion, but this seemed like a pretty serious— “Wait, did you say he followed you here? You mean, _now?”_

Mabel nodded miserably.

Dipper grabbed her arm, tugging her to her feet. “Come on!” 

They ran down the dirt path back towards McGucket’s, but Dipper didn’t lead them towards the door. He pulled Mabel past the side of the house and up towards the edge of the woods, and got two steps towards the trees before Mabel dug her heels in. 

“Dipper, Isn’t it dangerous in there?” 

Dipper rolled his eyes. “I’ve been in the woods all day, it’s fine. The worst thing I saw was a woodpecker with kleptomania.” 

“But…” Mabel bit her lip, looking at the trees that towered for miles above their heads. It felt like miles, anyway. 

“I also found a goat?” Dipper tried, knowing his sister’s weaknesses. Mabel’s eyes widened, and Dipper smiled. “Come _on,”_ he said. “Gideon won’t follow us. He thinks the woods are full of monsters, remember?” 

“But what if he was right—” 

“He’s nine.” Dipper snorted. “His mom probably tells him that every night to keep him from wandering off and getting eaten by, I dunno, a raccoon.”

Mabel thought about it for a second. And a second was all she had before they both heard the sound of approaching hooves. 

“Mabel! You didn’t say he had a _horse.”_ Dipper grabbed her wrist and began running. Mabel picked up into a jog behind him, apparently having made up her mind. 

“His name is Therandil,” Mabel said, panting as she ran. “And he’s— beautiful—” 

“He’s also faster than us,” Dipper added, trying to remember where he’d found that cave. It hadn’t been too far from the house, but it hadn’t been too close. He’d found it about an hour into his search, so that meant it had to be at least a mile away. It shouldn’t take too long to run a mile, right? Maybe eight minutes? And if Gideon didn’t have them in his sights— 

“I’ve got you in my sights!” 

Dipper yanked them behind a tree. Gideon’s horse barrelled past them. Thinking quickly, Dipper pointed to a dip in the forest floor that led to a ravine. 

“There!” he hissed. “We can get out of his field of vision.” 

Mabel nodded, and they jumped. 

Dipper felt every rock and root on the way down. Mabel rolled on her side, her hair catching twigs and leaves. They both landed at the bottom of the ravine, right next to a small creek. Dipper grabbed his sister’s arm and pulled her to the near side of the little cliff, so Gideon wouldn’t be able to see them over the edge. He looked around again, looking for a cave, or a burrow, or even a big tree— 

The book was lying on the forest floor. It had fallen out of his coat. A ray of sunlight dappled the cover, catching the golden hand. Dipper’s heart stopped in his chest. If Gideon saw it, it was a dead giveaway. The light would have blinded _him,_ if it weren’t for the thin black number etched on top that broke the beam of light. 

Dipper’s breath caught in his chest.

He crawled on his hands and knees as quietly as he could, ignoring Mabel’s frantic and silent attempts to grab him, and snatched the book up.

“Where are you?” Gideon called. He sounded close, but not on top of them. “Come on out, now, I just want to talk.” 

Dipper opened the book, and the second the pages caught the light, blank ink appeared on the parchment. The strokes were messy, the ink lines dark and askew. They looked nothing like the feeble, strained numbers Dipper had seen hours ago. In fact, they weren’t numbers at all. 

_HP OPSUI._

Another code— and this one looked much more solvable. Dipper squinted at the letters, trying to rearrange them in his head. _Ship? Push? Soup?_

Mabel tugged his arm. She pointed at the book and mouthed a lot of words very quickly. Dipper understood none of them. 

_I know,_ he mouthed back. He hesitated, wondering how he could possibly get across the point that yes, he saw the talking book too, and no, the fact that it was talking on its own wasn’t new; but yes, actually, the fact that it was writing letters was actually a new feature— 

Mabel waved her arms in wide circles, interrupting his train of thought. Frustrated, Dipper held the book up and jabbed a finger at the letters. Mabel shook her head and pointed at the grass. A tiny, round shape cast the grass into shadow: Gideon was just above them.

“Mabel, now, just come on out and we can talk about this,” he called, oblivious to the fact that they were under his feet. “I’m sure we can come to some sort’a undertstandin’. Now, where’d you go?” 

_Go,_ Dipper mouthed, staring at the first two letters. _“That’s it!”_

Mabel slapped her palm over his mouth, but it was too late. 

“There y’are,” Gideon hummed, and they both looked up in mounting horror to see him astride his horse, standing on the ridge. “Oh, and your brother’s here too, ain’t that wonderful.” He stroked a tiny hand through his horse’s mane. “Therandil can’t take much more’n two, though, so he’ll have to walk.” 

“Gideon, I’m not gonna marry you,” Mabel said, definitely not for the first time.

Gideon’s giddy little smile vanished. “Listen, Mabel, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” He picked a speck of dirt out of his fingernail— really, it was so small that Dipper didn’t think any dirt could actually get under there in the first place. He was probably just doing it for show. “Easy way, you come along with me now and we forget this ever—” 

Dipper grabbed his sister’s wrist and ran.

 _“Hey!”_ Gideon barked, and his horse reared back on its hind legs. _“Quit it, you stupid thing, just follow them!”_

They plunged into the trees, Gideon not far behind. Heart hammering in his chest, Dipper held the book open and tried to read the second string of letters. It was hard to do, in part because he was running from a nine year old lunatic on a horse, but also because the nuggets of sunlight were getting fewer and further between. 

_O-P-S-U-I: O_ turned to _N, P_ turned to _O, S_ turned to _R—_

“North!” he shouted to Mabel, who was barely managing to keep up. “It’s telling us to go north!” 

“And you’re just gonna _trust_ the crazy magic book?” she shouted back, waving an arm in the air. 

“I don’t see you— coming up— with a better plan—” 

_“Tree!”_

She pulled his arm just in time to keep him from running headfirst into another gigantic Red Fir. Dipper checked the forest canopy— if they kept the sun to their left, they’d be heading in the right direction. A twinkle of sunlight hit his left cheek and he pointed forward. _“Go! That way!”_

They ran through the brush, the trees growing thicker and thicker around them. The sky began to vanish from the treetops, the air turned cold, and the forest fell darker and darker. Dipper didn’t look back to see if Gideon was behind them, he just kept running with Mabel’s hand in his.

And then, at once, he was brought to a halt as Mabel tripped over an overturned root and landed, face first, in the grass. 

“Mabel!” He knelt down to help her up, pull her to her feet— “Mabel, come on, we gotta—” 

“Dipper, _shh,”_ Mabel hissed. 

They fell silent, and for a moment they just listened to the sound of the forest around them. The leaves, fifty feet over their heads, rustled gently against one another in a constant, shifting backdrop of noise. From far away, a bird twittered, and another answered its call. And, much louder than that, Dipper’s own shallow breaths filled his ears. But he couldn’t hear a trace of hooves on dirt, or nine-year-old screeching.

Dipper looked around. They were stood in a small clearing surrounded by trees, with a circle of flat rocks atop a patch of lush green grass. It almost looked like someone had arranged them on purpose, but they’d clearly been here for years. Moss crawled up the sides, and the edges were worn and ragged. 

Mabel found the biggest rock and flopped onto her back, letting out a breath. “I think we lost him.” 

Dipper eyed the forest that surrounded them. “I think we’re _lost.”_

“What?” Mabel sat up. “I thought you knew where you were going! You said you’d been in the forest all day.” 

“Not up _here,”_ Dipper said impatiently. He started pacing around the circle of rocks. “It’s okay. We’ll be fine. All we have to do is just go back the way we came, right?” He stopped, looking at the rocks. “Which… way did we come from.” 

“Uhh.” Mabel pointed to her left. “There?”

Dipper pinched his nose. “It’s fine. We were heading north. We can just find the sun and go back south.”

“The sun?” Mabel raised an eyebrow. “Dipper, we can’t see anything in here.”

She was right. The leaves overhead glowed green with daylight, but it was impossible to tell which direction it was coming from. Dipper’s heart sank to his shoes. “Oh, boy.” 

“We’re gonna be stuck here _forever,”_ Mabel wailed, tucking her knees to her chest. “And now, instead of talking about some monster that lives in the forest, they’re gonna talk about _us._ Two dumb kids that got lost in the woods.” She blew a raspberry. “I wanted people to remember me for my creative genius, Dipper.”

“We’re not gonna be—” Dipper stopped pacing. “Hey, why are you blaming me for this?” 

“You’re the one who said to go into the forest.” Mabel folded her arms.

“Well, you’re the one who couldn’t say no to a nine year old.” 

_“You’re_ the one who thought it was a good idea to listen to a spooky magic book—” Mabel broke off. “Hey, where’d you get that thing, anyway?” 

Dipper was still holding the journal. He looked down at the open pages, but they were blank again. 

“Okay,” he said, biting his lip, “this is going to sound crazy.” 

“A nine year old proposed to me today.” 

“Fair point, fair point.” Dipper nodded. “So, I found a magic journal in a tree.” He paused for dramatic effect, but Mabel didn’t gasp. 

“I already know it’s magic, dumbdumb.”

“Right.” Dipper cleared his throat. “I guess the tree part is less interesting than the magic thing. Anyway— it was covered in dust and stuff, so I think it’s been buried for—” 

“Wait, buried?” Mabel frowned. “I thought you said you found it in a tree.” 

“Well, I found this weird, like, mechanical thing in the tree. And then I flipped a switch and found the journal in the ground, and—” He shook his head. “That’s not the point. Mabel, _this book can talk.”_ He began pacing wildly again, words coming a mile a minute. “It took me a while to figure it out, but it talks in code— it was telling us to go north back there, but all the letters were shifted over by one. It’s a Caesar Cipher, I’ve read about those—” 

Mabel grabbed the journal out of his hands. “Hey, book!” she said brightly. “My name’s Mabel, nice to meet you!”

For a second, nothing happened. And then, as if it had heard Mabel, the pages rippled. The same exhausted, strained ink strokes from hours ago began to appear. It barely looked like the same handwriting as the gibberish letters. Slowly, it spelled out another series of numbers. 

_31341425 241311121521._

Mabel looked at Dipper. “So what does that mean?” 

“I don’t know.” Dipper frowned at the numbers. “It was doing that earlier. It’s got to be a code, but I don’t know how to read it.”

Mabel’s face fell. “Well, poop, this is boring again.” 

“Again? When was this ever boring?” 

“It’s a book, Dipper.” 

Dipper grabbed his hair and pulled. “It can _talk._ It’s trying to say something.” 

“Then it should use regular words. Why isn’t it doing the gibberish thing? You could read that.”

“I don’t _know,”_ Dipper groaned. “I didn’t make it, Mabel—” 

_“Dipper!”_

But Dipper had heard it too. Something was rustling behind the trees. A sudden brush of wind slithered down his neck, curling under his coat and sending a shiver down his spine. It was cold in the everpresent shade of the deep forest, and even though he knew it couldn’t be much later than 3:00 or so, it felt like they were well past sunset. 

Well, he was holding a magic talking book, so maybe anything was possible. 

The rustle came again, closer this time. Dipper wished he still had McGucket’s net— it hadn’t been the most threatening weapon, but it would still feel good to have _something._ As it stood, all he had was a dusty old book and a threadbare coat. 

“Dipper?” Mabel whispered. Whatever argument that had sparked was now gone in the face of danger. They only had one another, and every time they forgot about that, life had a way of reminding them.

Dipper grabbed a stick off the ground. “Get behind me.” Mabel hopped off the rock and hid behind Dipper, clutching his coat.

The rustle came again, feet away from them, and from behind a thick cluster of ferns emerged— 

Six very, very small men. 

They were all about two feet tall, wearing red pointed hats. All but one of them had bright white beards and bushy moustaches, except the one standing in the center. He was clean shaven, except for his brown beard. At the sight of Dipper’s stick they clutched one another, and the one in front held his hands up. “Aaagh! Wait!”

Dipper lowered the stick. The brown-bearded man sighed in relief. 

_“Thank_ you. I’ve never been skewered before but let me tell you, it does not sound good. Not a fan.” 

“Um,” Dipper said. 

“Anyway, you folks look like you’re lost,” said the little man. “Can we offer you some directions?” 

Dipper rubbed his eyes to clear them. “Sorry, just— Who are you?” 

“Oh, right!” The man snapped his fingers. “Right, we’re gnomes. I always forget to lead with that. I’m Jeff, this is Carson, Steve, Jason, Mike, Andy—” He pointed at each of the gnomes as he introduced them, and then broke off, looking between Dipper and Mabel. “You two aren’t vampires, are you?” 

“There are _vampires?”_ Mabel gasped. “Ohmygosh. Do you know any? Can you show us—” 

“No, we’re not vampires,” Dipper said quickly. “We’re just, uh, normal humans.” 

“Perfect!” Jeff said, which was a slightly odd choice of word given the circumstances.

The journal quivered under Dipper’s fingertips, and as he glanced at it he saw another trail of numbers begin to spell their way across the page. 

_1245511112 1442421421._

The second number was emphasized with a vigorous underline. Though the numbers were faint and exhausted, the last line was written with visible force. Whatever the book wanted to say, it was clearly important.

Dipper glanced at Jeff, who was now talking to Mabel about his hat. She was rapt with attention, crouched on her knees to talk to him closer to eye-level. Behind Jeff, the other gnomes were all watching Mabel a little too fervently. Dipper’s stomach began to twist.

“—we have plenty of them back at home, if you want one,” Jeff said, and Mabel squealed in delight. “Why don’t we stop there on the way back to your place?”

Right. That was a red flag if Dipper had ever heard one. He tucked the book under his arm and cleared his throat. “Actually, I think we’re good.” He folded his arms. “We’re not lost, but thanks for the offer.” 

“What?” Mabel stared at him. “Dipper, we have no idea—” 

“Yes we do,” Dipper said quickly. “Mabel, come on, let’s go.”

Mabel flushed, and Dipper immediately regretted his choice of words. Asking Mabel to do something was one thing, but telling her to do it was quite another. And only one of those usually yielded results. 

Mabel’s eyes darted to the journal under Dipper’s arm. “No,” she said firmly, putting her hands on her hips. “If you want to listen to your dumb book, then fine. But I’m gonna follow Jeff.” 

“Mabel, are you crazy? You’re seriously gonna follow a guy you _just met_ back to his _house?”_

“It’s called making friends, and I’m a making-friends master,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re just jealous because the only friend you’ve made around here is a book.”

“I am not jealous, I’m just—” 

Jeff cleared his throat. Dipper and Mabel stared at him. “Pardon me for interrupting,” Jeff said to Mabel, “but I just wanted to say that you have a wonderful sense of self confidence. You sound like a swell decision maker.” 

“Why thank you,” Mabel said, scowling at Dipper. “See, Jeff recognizes my talents.” 

“And what are you, a size six?” Jeff measured Mabel’s shoe with his arm. “Six and a half?” 

“Um,” Mabel said. 

“We can make that work.” Jeff nodded. “Fellas, we’ve found our new Gnome Queen!” 

“Buh— what?”

 _“Like we practiced!”_ Jeff barked, and the handful of gnomes leapt at Mabel, baring their tiny little sharp teeth and hissing. Two of them caught in her hair, dragging her down to the forest floor. Dipper rushed to her side and began whacking them with his stick. He managed to dislodge either Steve or Jason, he couldn’t tell, before Jeff yelled, _“get the short one, he has a stick!”_

“Short?” Dipper repeated incredulously, as three gnomes latched onto his side and began clawing at him with surprisingly sharp claws. He jabbed them mercilessly with the stick. “We’re— the— same— height—” 

He got two of them off, but the third one crawled up his shoulder and grabbed his face, screeching. Dipper took a step back, tripped over what was either a root or his own foot, he couldn’t tell, and landed on the ground, clawing blindly into the air. 

“Dipper!” he heard Mabel yell, and then her fist connected with his face, knocking the gnome off and his hat with it. The gnome growled furiously, scampering back to its companions with Dipper’s hat between his teeth.

Mabel grabbed his arm. “Dipper, c’mon!” 

Dipper didn’t need to be told twice. They set off through the trees, the gnomes hot on their heels. Despite being tiny and therefore having tiny legs, the suckers were surprisingly fast over ground— and besides that, he and Mabel had already exhausted themselves running through the forest once today.

“Hey,” he called to Mabel, jumping over a tree root. “At least this is better than running from Gideon, right?” He felt the sudden, sharp pain of a gnome latching itself onto his ankle with its teeth. “Never mind, it’s worse— it’s definitely worse—” Dipper’s foot slipped over a slick rock and he crashed to the forest floor. He looked up to see clear sky, and felt raindrops on his forehead. They’d reached the end of the forest; the trees stopped growing abruptly, giving way to grass. Dipper hadn’t even noticed; the sky was dark with clouds from the oncoming storm, and it was just as dark outside the forest as it was in it. 

He kicked the gnome off with his other foot, sending it flying back through the trees. He didn’t even have to ask; Mabel was already helping him up. He took one step and winced; he’d twisted his ankle. 

Mabel grabbed his arm and put it over her shoulder, grunting with the effort. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” she said, pulling him along over the grass. “He just seemed really nice, and I think I was jealous that you found a cool magic book on your first day here and all I found was a creepy nine year old—” 

“Mabel, this isn’t really the best time,” Dipper said, trying not to cry out as his ankle hit the side of a rock. “Shouldn’t we focus on…” He trailed off, staring at the sight that met them beyond the trees.

Where the forest gave way to open grass, a delicate blue mist filled the air. And as they hobbled into it, metal pillars began to take shape, curving into a gigantic iron gate easily five times their height. To either side of the gate stood a thick shrub wall that stood as tall as the gate itself. Dipper could tell just by looking at it that it was meant to keep things out, and that it was good at its job. 

Without the canopy of pine needles to hide it, the moon shone down upon them, throwing the forest floor into light.

 _Moon?_ Dipper thought. How could it be night already? And how was the moon shining so clearly if it was raining this hard— 

His train of thought was interrupted when a pair of gnomes leapt for his feet. He kicked them away, and couldn’t hold back the cry this time as his wounded ankle spiked with pain. 

Mabel yanked the iron gate but it held fast. “What do we do, what do we do?” 

They pressed their backs to the cold iron; the bars were built just close enough that they couldn’t slip through. The rain was coming down harder now; Dipper’s hair fell into his eyes. He wiped it to the side and immediately froze at the sight that met him.

At least two dozen gnomes surrounded them, their little sharp teeth glinting in the impossible moonlight. They screeched and hissed as they drew closer, some of them climbing on one another’s backs to stand taller. 

“Look, it doesn’t have to be a whole thing,” Jeff said, from atop Carson’s— Andy’s?— back. “Just come on back with us and we’ll get you set up in the cere-gnome-ial— _ceremonial,_ I can’t talk today— the gnome dress, we have a gnome dress for you.”

“I bet it’s ugly and I’m never gonna wear it!” Mabel hollered. 

Jeff narrowed his eyes and held out a threatening finger— at least, it would have been threatening if he wasn’t two feet tall and also a gnome. “You’re making a grave mistake. The gnomes are a powerful race. _Do not trifle with the—”_

A sound came from the woods.

It was something enormous, something monstrous, something so utterly and completely foreign that every hair on Dipper’s head stood on end. The trees themselves rattled in fear. The iron gate behind them creaked, sliding an inch to the side. And then it broke off, echoing again and again against the trees until it was gone.

Dipper couldn’t breathe. Beside him, Mabel was trembling. The gnomes were motionless, even Jeff. 

One of them cleared his throat. “Can we call it?” 

Jeff sighed. “Jason, this is the fifth time this week you’ve ‘called it’.” He made air quotes. “You have to learn how to follow through.” He cleared his throat. _“But,_ since there’s a giant monster right behind us…” He sighed. “Fine. We’ll put the Queen thing off to next week, okay?” 

The gnomes all grunted in agreement. Jeff snapped his fingers, and one by one the gnomes hopped on each other’s backs and began to retreat into the woods, not even giving Mabel and Dipper a second glance. 

The last few stragglers disappeared through the trees, and then they were left with nothing but eerie silence. Rain fell harder still, echoing the pitter-patter of fear that still lingered from the forest.

Dipper took a deep breath. His ankle was throbbing, and he almost dropped the journal; his fingers were starting to feel numb with cold. Mabel wasn’t faring much better. She was still shaking.

“What do we do now?” she said.

They both turned to see what lay beyond the iron gates. The strange blue mist parted down the middle, giving way to a sight that made their eyes widen in awe.

A gigantic stone castle stretched into the sky, the top spires reaching past the clouds above. The windows were black and vacant, and the west side of the castle was entirely overgrown with plantlife clinging to the stone. A twisting cobblestone path connected the iron gates to a set of heavy-looking doors in the center of the castle. 

Mabel pushed the iron gate and it swung open with a creak.

“Mabel,” Dipper hissed. “This— this looks like private property, we can’t just walk in here.” 

“Dipper, this place looks like it’s been abandoned for years.” Mabel pointed at the castle gardens, overladen with grass that was taller than they were.

Dipper folded his arms. “Well, maybe it was abandoned for a reason.”

Mabel groaned. “Here, I’ll list all the reasons we should go inside,” she said, counting them off on her fingers. “One: it’s cold and wet out here. Two: we just got chased by a bunch of gnomes and I’m tired and I know you are too, you’re doing that thing where you try not to yawn and it just makes me yawn— you’re doing it again, stop it—” She yawned, then shook her head vigorously. “Three: there’s a monster in the woods that will _definitely_ eat us if we go back in there. Four: a big empty castle can’t be worse than going back into town, right?” 

Dipper considered it. “McGucket did tell me to catch a raccoon for his death machine that I hope doesn’t really exist.” 

“And five: you’re hurt,” Mabel finished. “So let’s stay here until we can think of a better plan.”

Before Dipper could make a rebuttal, another scream reverberated from the woods. It was like nothing they’d ever heard before, an unrestrained roar that rang in their ears long after it had finished. And even though it was faint, the fact that they were close enough to hear it at all made Dipper’s heart pound hard enough to hurt. The journal slipped through his fingers, landing in the grass.

“And until that thing goes away,” Mabel added. “Because, _yikes.”_

Dipper nodded. “Good plan.” He picked up the journal. “Let’s go.” 

They squeezed through the iron gate and walked past the cobblestone pathway that led through the grass gardens, Dipper’s arm still draped over Mabel’s shoulder so he could hobble alongside her.

“Wow,” Dipper breathed, staring around. “What happened here?”

By the looks of it, a lot. Every part of the place was overgrown. The gardens grew wild with grass that reached their shoulders, vines twisting their way through the undergrowth, and sharp, spiky thorns that tugged at their clothes. 

“Dipper, this place is huge,” Mabel said, gesturing around at the gardens that looked like two gigantic fields. “You could fit a hundred pigs in here, at _least.”_

“That’s… specific.” 

She was right, though. Despite the fact that they were soaked to the bone and freezing cold, it was kind of cool to walk through a plot of land this large. It was certainly larger than any property they’d ever seen before. He couldn’t help but wonder who had lived here, and why they’d left.

“Ow— hair, _hair—”_

Dipper untangled Mabel’s hair from the thicket of thorns, laughing. She punched his arm and he slipped on the slick, moss-covered cobblestone under their feet. He stepped back to balance himself, but his foot found air and he was falling—

“Gotcha!” Mabel pulled him up by the arm and they stood back to look at the crater in the ground. 

The cobblestone had been blown apart, feet from the door. It was cracked down to the foundation, bits and pieces of debris lying in discarded chunks along the pathway. Moss and lichen had overgrown most of them, and a few plants had begun to grow through the cracks in the path. 

The journal quivered in Dipper’s hands. He jumped, fingers slipping over the cover, and the book fell from his fingers. It landed, pages splayed open, half in and half out of the doorway. One page was safe under the overhang, but one was at the mercy of the rain. 

A gust of wind blew through the grass, and the journal’s pages fluttered. And then two words appeared, the ink marks shining solid, neat, and clear in the moonlight.

_HP JOTJEF._

_“Go inside,”_ Dipper translated. He picked up the book and tucked it under his arm. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.” 

Mabel shrugged. “Maybe it just wants to get out of the rain.”

Dipper felt the dry pages under his fingertips. “Yeah. Maybe.”

They looked at the door. The glass window at the top was broken, nothing but darkness beyond it. The wood itself was black and old, the metal embellishments rusty and faded with time. And under his arm, Dipper swore the journal was pulsing with excitement.

“Wanna do the honors?” Mabel grinned, putting her hand on the brass embellishments that met in the center. 

Dipper tucked the journal into his coat and placed his hand beside Mabel’s. “On three.”

 _“One,”_ they said together. The wind kicked up, the grass began to whisper. _“Two.”_ The moonlight began to fade, clouds returning to cast the castle back into shadow. _“Three!”_

And they pushed open the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [TUBOMFZ](https://md5decrypt.net/en/Polybius-square/)


	3. But Not Too Fast

It took a lot of effort to move the gigantic castle doors, but with a lot of grunting from Mabel’s end, they finally managed it. Worn wood opened to a cavernous room, and Dipper could only assume it was a vast entryway— it looked more like a pitch-black void that swallowed whatever came past its door. 

They walked inside, Dipper still clinging to his sister for support, and a gust of wind blew the doors shut behind them with a dull, final-sounding _thud_ , encasing them in darkness. Not even the moonlight could penetrate through the stained glass windows, and after inspecting them, Dipper could see why. 

“They’re painted over,” he said, dragging a fingertip across the glass. It came back soft with dust.

“Weird,” Mabel whispered. “It’s like someone _wanted_ to make this place look as spooky as possible.” 

They could barely hear the storm from within the castle walls. It was nothing but a dull background rumble, the rain muffled by the stone walls and the layers of coverings over the windows. The glass didn’t even rattle. But even though the wind couldn’t reach them, the ever-present coldness of the storm still managed to seep through the stone and chill them through their damp coats. 

Dipper realized that Mabel was shivering. “Let’s see if we can find a fireplace,” he said quickly, and felt Mabel dip her head in an aggressive nod. 

They slowly edged along the wall, trying to find some evidence of a brick outcropping, or even a torch. But their height was nothing to brag about, and the walls were sheer and smooth, as least as far up as they could reach. It wasn’t far.

“This is pointless,” Mabel said, after nearly ten minutes of searching. “Dipper, just wait here and I’ll run to the middle of the room and see what I crash into.” 

Dipper grabbed her arm tight before she could try it. “Mabel, that’s a terrible idea.” 

“It’s faster than doing this,” Mabel pointed out. “And do you really want to walk all the way around this place with your foot like that?” 

“It’s not broken, just twisted,” Dipper muttered. “I’m fine.” 

“I still think my plan is better.”

“You have no idea what’s in there, you could wind up bashing your head into a sword or something—” 

“You think there’s _swords_ in here? That would be—” 

But exactly what a sword would be, Dipper didn’t find out. Without warning, the entry hall was cast into brilliant light, and Mabel’s next word faded to nothing. 

Lining the walls, far out of their reach, was a line of oil lamps affixed to the stone in a messy-looking row. Each one of them glowed faintly golden, and together they made enough light to fill the whole room. A grand staircase filled the back wall, flanking it from either side and curving to form a balcony at the top. By the left wall sat a piano that looked like it had hadn’t been used in decades, judging by the dust and the cobwebs. The floor was littered with spare wooden parts, broken quills, and dusty footprints. Footprints that were much, much larger than theirs—

“Hey, bozos!” a voice sounded from directly behind them. They whirled around, Dipper’s useless ankle skidding over the wood as Mabel tugged him, to see a girl standing a foot away, brandishing an axe in the air. She was older than them but not by much, and the red axe blade matched her hair. “I thought I told you and the rest of your pointy-toothed gang to scram!” 

She stopped short at the sight of them. “Oh, you’re... kids,” she said, and dropped the axe to her side. She tucked it into a leather holster that doubled as a belt, holding up a pair of faded work trousers. “I thought you were vampires.” 

Dipper grit his teeth. “Why does everyone think we’re—”

“How’d you get in here?” the girl asked, looking between the two of them with a puzzled, frustrated expression.

“Look,” Dipper said, holding his hands up defensively. “I’m sorry we’re trespassing, but it’s storming really bad out there, and we just ran away from a bunch of gnomes—” 

“And a nine year old on a horse,” Mabel added helpfully. The girl blinked in surprise at that, though she seemed unfazed by the mention of gnomes.

“That too,” Dipper said. “Plus a monster. I think. We didn’t get a good look.” He took a step forward out of instinct and immediately sucked in a sharp breath as his ankle brushed the wall. 

The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, geez, that looks bad,” she said, kneeling down to get a better look. Without an axe in hand and murder in her eyes, she looked much less terrfying and much more friendly. They’d never seen anyone with hair like hers before, red and long enough to fall to her waist. Mabel looked enchanted by the sight of it. The girl tapped Dipper’s ankle lightly and clicked her tongue. “Yep, definitely swollen. Okay,” she said, standing up, “follow me and stay quiet.”

“Where are we going?” Mabel asked her immediately. 

“The bathroom,” the girl answered. “There should be stuff in there to bandage your brother’s leg.”

Dipper didn’t ask how she knew they were siblings. The fact that they shared the same face was usually enough to clue people into that fact, though there had been that one strange kid back home who’d thought they were sweethearts just because he noticed Dipper holding his sister’s hand. It had taken a week of trying to convince him otherwise before Mabel had finally convinced her brother to give it up as a lost cause.

Pushing away the memories of home, Dipper nodded to Mabel and they followed the red-haired girl through the entrance hall and up the right staircase. Dipper noticed she was walking slowly so that Dipper could keep up with his hobbling. He was about to thank her when his stomach decided to growl, deafeningly loud in the otherwise silent room. 

The girl laughed, and Dipper’s cheeks went pink. “I might be able to sneak you some food out of the kitchen,” the girl said, “as long as no one catches—” 

“Oh, hey Wendy!”

The girl jumped about a mile as a taller, rotund man appeared at the top of the staircase, smiling blandly at them. In contrast to her layers of sturdy flannel and leather, he was clad in a loose-looking shirt that merely draped from his shoulders to his waist. It carried a few torn patches, and a few more discolored ones. He scratched his stomach absently. 

“Soos!” Wendy hissed, “be _quiet._ I’m trying to smuggle these kids up to the bathroom.” The man, Soos, stared at her. Wendy grit her teeth. “It’s not as weird as it sounds, I promise.” 

“Whoa,” Soos said, staring at Mabel and Dipper. “Kids! Where’d you get ‘em?” 

“I don’t know,” Wendy said impatiently, apparently resigned to the fact that Soos was now loudly tailing them. She began leading them through a hallway off the side of the right staircase. “They just showed up in the entrance hall.”

“But how’d they get past the wards?” Soos asked. 

“I don’t _know,”_ Wendy grumbled. Her footsteps became a little heavier. 

“Do you think they just broke? The bossman did say your sigils looked a little shaky—” 

_“My sigils were fine,”_ Wendy snapped. She yanked Soos’s arm to make him turn at the end of the hallway. “I don’t know how the gremlins got in.” 

“We’re not gremlins, we’re humans!” Dipper cried. “Normal humans! Why is that so hard for people to understand?” 

“Well, most ‘normal humans’ stay in town,” Wendy said, making air quotations. “With a few exceptions,” she added, pointing casually at herself and then Soos. “Though I dunno if I’d call Soos ‘normal’.” 

“That’s fair,” Soos agreed. 

They continued down the hallway for a bit before turning left at the end. Wendy seemed to know exactly where she was going, and at the speed she was walking to account for Dipper’s twisted ankle, they had more than enough time to look around. 

There were more of those oil lamps on the walls. As they turned corners, the rows of lamps would illuminate the path ahead. After a few minutes Dipper realized that they’d been bolted into the walls with iron screws, cracking the wallpaper and the wood underneath. The wallpaper itself was a gentle golden color, marred in places by occasional charcoal drawings. Most of the drawings, however, had been slashed over with broad strokes of red paint— Dipper really hoped it was paint, and had to remind himself that blood dried brown, not red, to stop himself from breathing too quickly. 

Off the walls, everything was large and ornate. Chandeliers, unlit, hung from the ceiling. Occasional paintings lined the walls, bizarre portraits of men and women with their faces painted white that made Dipper’s hair stand on end. Several suits of armor stood proudly at attention, and though they were free of dust, the iron was rusty, dull, and unpolished. Everything was looked after, it seemed, but not used.

They reached the bathroom at last, a wide peach-painted room that housed a gigantic shower, a golden toilet, a beautiful sink with a gold-embroidered mirror, and an enormous porcelain bathtub that took up a quarter of the room. This place at least looked used enough. Dipper took a seat on the edge of a bathtub; it reminded him of the fountain in town. The porcelain edge was just as wide.

Wendy opened a large cupboard by the sink and, after a minute of fishing around, pulled out a tightly wound roll of bandages. She tossed the roll to Soos, who promptly dropped it. Dipper tried to reach for it, but Mabel was faster, scooping it off the floor before it had the chance to bounce.

“Stay still, you’ll hurt yourself,” she scolded, and handed the roll over to Soos. It was remarkable how quickly she had clearly found trust for them, and Dipper almost wanted to chide her for it, but then again he was trusting Wendy and Soos right beside her. What other choice did they have, anyway?

Soos wrapped his ankle slowly and carefully, but even when he was done he looked worried. “Gosh, dude, this is pretty swollen. I think you need some ice.” He stuffed the bandage roll into one of his pockets and stood. “I’ll go get some.”

“You have an ice house?” Dipper asked excitedly, almost forgetting about the pain in his ankle. He’d read about ice houses before— large, underground rooms lined with straw and iron that could store the ice harvested in winter for months. He’d never seen one before, let alone used it, but it made complete sense that a castle this large would have one. He wondered how big it was, where they kept it, and whether he’d look like a lunatic for asking to see it. Probably, he decided, managing to tamp down his excitement enough to keep from actually asking. 

Wendy and Soos shared a look like they were both remembering a very funny joke, but neither of them elaborated. 

“Just hurry,” Wendy told Soos, pushing him out the door. “And don’t get caught.” Soos nodded seriously at her and set off without another word.

“You keep saying that,” Mabel said once they were alone, innocently swinging her legs to and fro over the side of the tub. “Caught by who?” 

“By whom,” Dipper said under his breath. Mabel ignored him. 

Wendy chewed her lip. “Hopefully you won’t have to find out,” she said. Dipper frowned at her and she held her hands up defensively. “You’re just kids, I don’t want to scare you.” 

“We’re teenagers,” Dipper protested. 

Mabel punched his side, and he had to suck in a breath to keep from crying out. He was pretty sure he had a gnome bite right over his stomach, but he didn’t want to look any more pathetic than he already did, sitting on the edge of a bathtub with his swollen ankle covered in bandages. In front of a girl.

“We’re _almost_ teenagers,” Mabel amended. Dipper tried to punch her back but missed. 

“Almost, huh?” Wendy, sounding amused, leaned on the wall beside the bathtub. “So what were you two doing in the woods, anyway? Y’know, besides running from gnomes?” 

“And a nine-year-old,” Mabel reminded her. 

“Oh man, I gotta hear that story.” 

Mabel began to tell her, conveniently leaving out their journey to Gravity Falls itself and instead starting the story from when they’d met Gideon by the fountain. It was actually interesting to hear; Dipper realized he’d never heard the full story. Mabel explained how he’d been charming and sweet and thoughtful, taken her around the town, toured her through the churchyard and the elementary school, and then he’d pulled a handful of roses out of nowhere.

“So first of all, where was he hiding them?” she said, clearly overjoyed to have an active audience to deliver this to at last. She seemed much happier to talk about it now that they were miles away from him. “And second of all, _what?_ Right? Like, where did that even come from? We were right in the friend zone! Everything was perfect!” 

Wendy burst out laughing. Mabel broke off, looking slightly hurt. Wendy caught her breath. “Sorry, but _dude,_ that’s a rough first date. And you didn’t even know it was a date!” She started laughing again. Dipper was torn; on one hand, he sided with Wendy’s opinion that Mabel had been more than a little oblivious, but on the other hand Mabel was beginning to look awkward. She grabbed a lock of her hair, looking at her lap.

“Oh, whatever,” Dipper said, punching her arm. “I’ve never been on a date at all, so now you’re one-up on me, right?”

Mabel punched him back, letting go of her hair.

“So how’d _you_ end up here?” Dipper asked Wendy, eager to push the subject somewhere else. 

Wendy made a clicking sound with her tongue, looking absently at the wall. “Long story. The short version is I had nowhere else to go.” She nodded at the door. “Neither did he.” Dipper waited, but she didn’t offer anything more than that. And before he could ask for details, they heard footsteps approaching. 

“It got kinda melty,” Soos’s voice said through the door, “but most of it’s still fine—” 

_“Soos!”_

Wendy went rigid at the sound of the new voice. It was gruff, irritable, and it carried something like a growl underneath it, almost like the speaker wasn’t quite human. Wendy clearly recognized it, and judging by the way her eyes darted to the bathroom door, the bathroom window, and finally to Mabel and Dipper, this was the mysterious person who wasn’t supposed to find them. 

“Oh, hey, Bossman,” Soos said, voice wavering. “Didn’t— didn’t expect you up here.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the voice said impatiently. “The west drainage pipes are clogged again. Go fix them.” 

“On it, Boss,” Soos said. “I just have to take this ice to the bathroom first.” 

“Why are you taking ice to the bathroom,” the voice said flatly. 

“Um,” Soos said nervously. “Wendy— uh— doesn’t want me to tell you.” 

There was a pause. “Wendy doesn’t want you to tell me about what?” 

Wendy smacked her face. Dipper felt a sinking sensation in his gut, and sure enough— 

“Oh, she doesn’t want me to tell you about these two kids that wandered in from the storm,” Soos said at once, oblivious to the fact that he was giving out three simultaneous heart attacks behind the bathroom door. “One of ‘em has a busted ankle, so—” 

The door burst open. 

Dipper wasn’t sure what to expect, but he certainly hadn’t prepared to be frightened. In less than a day, Mabel and he had fended off both a nine-year-old overtaken with limerence and a swarm of kidnapping-obsessed gnomes. Not to mention McGucket, who had nearly beaten them into the ground with a frying pan and threatened Dipper with something he’d called a _robut._ So whatever mysterious castle-keeper awaited them, he’d been pretty sure he could handle it.

But the moment the door opened and a figure emerged, unbridled fear flooded Dipper from head to toe. 

The thing that appeared in the doorway wasn’t human at all, despite the gravelly voice that had spoken perfectly clearly seconds ago. It was easily eight feet tall, maybe ten, and it had to hunch its back to make it inside the room; the two horns atop its head chipped off two identical chunks of wood from the top of the doorway. Nearly identical to the horns were the beast’s razor-sharp claws, which dug indents into the doors as it held them open with its massive hands— Dipper supposed they were paws, but the word didn’t seem dangerous enough to really describe them.

Sharper still were the beast’s fangs, two pearly white pillars pointing skyward from its jaw, which would have stood out more if not for the thick layer that covered the beast from head to toe. Dipper could see, in his mind’s eye, those fangs stained red with blood, both fresh and faded. 

Mabel bounded forward and grabbed a handful of fur. “Oh my gosh, you’re so _fluffy!”_

Whatever the beast had expected, it wasn’t that. It froze, along with Dipper, and after a moment of bewildered silence, it grabbed Mabel by the collar of her sweater, pried her off, and dropped her on the ground. Dipper tried not to sink into the floor in relief.

“Wendy,” the beast said icily. “Why are there two gremlins in my castle.”

Wendy grunted in frustration. “Listen, man, I don’t _know._ They got past the sigils somehow, it’s not my fault—” 

“Why are they _still_ in my castle,” the beast clarified, and Dipper swore he could feel its growl rumble through the floorboards. 

Wendy swallowed thickly. Dipper and Mabel might have been trespassing in the first place, but she’d clearly invited them up here.

Sensing the tension, Soos cleared his throat. “These two kids just needed somewhere dry to stay,” he said carefully. “There’s a storm outside.” 

The beast scowled. “There’s always a storm outside.”

“Please, Boss,” Soos said, pulling his hat off and fiddling with it. “Can we just let them stay for the night? I’ll make dinner and everything.”

“They _did_ just escape a swarm of gnomes,” Wendy added. “Plus, they’re cold.”

Soos pointed at Dipper. “The smaller one is injured.”

“I’m not the—” Dipper began, but Wendy kicked him right in the ankle and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying. 

The beast’s gaze landed on Dipper’s ankle and stayed there for a moment. And then Dipper actually saw its eyes. There was something about them that made his heart twist, just a little. He couldn’t quite put it to words, but something tugged behind his chest, something almost familiar.

The beast’s gaze lingered for another fraction of a second before it huffed, sweeping away. “Fine,” it said, voice still gruff. “Glass of water, crust of bread, don’t waste the good stuff.”

Soos opened his mouth to object, but the beast ran him over. 

“Throw ‘em in the basement cell when you’re done. Keep them out of the west wing and _out of my sight.”_

And with that, it swept out of the bathroom without bothering to slam the doors. They heard it stomp down the halls, its footsteps growing fainter and fainter, until at last a door slammed from what sounded like a mile away.

Wendy, Soos, Mabel, and Dipper all let out a collective breath. 

“Well,” Wendy said, “that went well.” 

* * *

The kitchen was much like the rest of the castle: ornately decorated and lavishly filled with supplies, but worn and faded with time. The wonderful copper oven was dull and rusty like every other metal feature, but it fired up in no time. Soos left to work on the western drainage pipes, so Wendy set about slicing bread and fetching butter. 

“Sorry it’s not much, but at least it’s warm,” Wendy said a few minutes later, setting down two identical plates laden with toasted bread and jam onto the kitchen table. It wasn’t a dining room, and this table was clearly used for preparing food, but it worked perfectly well for now.

“Are you kidding me?” Dipper let out a wheeze of breath that was almost a laugh. They were used to _not much._ They weren’t used to this.

 _“This_ is a crust?” Mabel picked up her bread and peered at it from every angle, like she was trying to figure out a difficult puzzle. 

“Well, it’s got crust on it,” Wendy said, winking. “It counts.”

Warm yeast met Dipper’s nostrils and he had to try very hard not to cry. He took a bite. Warmth spread over his tongue, quickly coupled with salt, fat, and at last the sweet tang of the jam. Heat bloomed through his body from the inside out, as if the toast itself held the very essence of a cozy fireplace. 

Beside him, Mabel made a strange noise. Dipper wasn’t alarmed, since that happened fairly often, but he tore his eyes off his plate to check on her just in case. 

She’d finished her first slice of toast already and was nearly done with the second. Her hair already looked sticky from the jam, and crumbs had migrated onto every square inch of her sweater. She was also sobbing.

“Whoa,” Wendy said, alarmed by the sight of tears streaking down Mabel’s face alongside the jam. “Are you okay?” 

“It’s fine,” Dipper said quickly. “She does this.” It wasn’t quite a lie. Mabel tended to get teary when she got emotional, and she tended to get emotional… a lot. But Dipper didn’t really want to explain just how long it had been since they’d eaten warm bread.

Thankfully Wendy just shrugged. “If you say so.” She folded her arms and leaned on the oven. Dipper got the impression that folding her arms and leaning on the nearest surface was one of her defining character traits. 

They ate in silence for another minute before Dipper cleared his throat. “So, am I allowed to ask?”

“About Stan?” Wendy guessed. “Sure.” 

“Stan,” he repeated dumbly. “Its name is… Stan.”

 _“His_ name is Stan,” Wendy corrected. “Word to the wise, don’t let Soos hear you calling him an ‘it’.” She made air quotations.

“Got it,” Dipper said. “So is he…” He trailed off. “I mean, _what_ is he?” 

Wendy shrugged. “Beats me.”

“That’s it?” 

“There’s tons of crazy things in the forest, not all of them have to have names,” Wendy said, gesturing vaguely at the blacked-out windows that stood between them and the trees. 

In the light Dipper could see that the paint covering the windows was indeed pitch-black, and it had been meticulously painted over every inch of the stained glass. The metal outlines that usually shaped out biblical scenes— Dipper had only seen stained glasses lining churches before— depicted triangles within triangles, strange geometric patterns that made his head hurt if he looked at them too long.

“I guess,” Dipper said slowly, tearing his eyes off the window and back to Wendy. “It’s kinda weird, though.”

“Sure, but so is most stuff around here.” Wendy poked his shoulder. “Like two little gremlin twins showing up outta nowhere and walking straight through the front door.” 

Dipper laughed. His ankle brushed the side of the table and he winced, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Even though it was wrapped up now, it still throbbed something terrible. Wendy snapped her fingers. 

“The ice!” she said. “I totally forgot. Hold on.” 

She opened a hatch on the kitchen counter. Whatever was inside emitted a faint blue glow that illuminated her front as she peered inside. “Drat,” she muttered. “Soos took the last of it.” She sighed, then closed the hatch, fetched a brass bowl, and turned on the faucet by the sink. She let the water flow for a moment and then, as Dipper watched with wide eyes, drew a precise circular symbol in the air with her fingertip. 

Something _fizzled_ in the air; Dipper’s arm hairs stood on end and Mabel looked up from her bread, a cupboard door swinging behind her.

The water began to fall white and solid from the tap, clanging into the sink. Wendy slid the bowl under the faucet, filled it with ice, then shut the tap off. And then she set the bowl down in front of Dipper, tossing a dish towel beside it. “Here you go.”

Dipper stared at the bundle, dumbfounded. “How—” He gaped. “I— what?” 

Wendy clicked her fingers. “Magic, dude.” At Dipper’s blank expression she snorted. “It’s just a basic freezing spell. Stan likes having ice around.”

“You can do _magic?”_ Mabel gushed. “That’s so cool! Can you teach me how to shoot fire out of my hands? _Boosh-boosh-boosh!”_ She mimicked throwing fireballs across the room. 

Wendy, to her credit, mimicked dodging them. Dipper tried to tell her with his eyes just how bad of an idea that would be. She seemed to get the gist. 

“I’d love to, but I’m not at the flame-throwing stages yet.” 

Mabel pouted. Dipper gave her a thumbs-up under the table. He was about to ask her what kind of stages she _was_ at when a yawn began to force its way out of his throat. He fought it down, but the damage had been done. Across the table, Mabel had half a second to glare indignantly at him before she was yawning too, wiping her eyes with the edge of her still-damp sweater sleeve. Wendy took this as her cue to collect their empty plates and toss them in the sink. Dipper thought he could hear the porcelain crack. 

“C’mon,” Wendy said, offering a hand out to Dipper. “I’ll sneak you guys into the attic.” 

Dipper, who was halfway out his chair, abruptly lost his balance and grabbed the edge of the table to keep from falling. “But— but—” he stammered. “Stan said—”

“Stan won’t catch you,” Wendy said, rolling her eyes. “Besides, you’ll be gone by morning anyway.”

“But—” 

Wendy picked him up under the arms, stood him upright, and put her hands on her hips. “Look, do you _wanna_ sleep in the dungeon?” 

Dipper looked at his sister, at the way her sweater still dripped rainwater onto the bathroom floor, how she was hugging her arms to her chest and had been for an hour. Even if she’d been enthusiastic about the food and bubbly about the magic, the day had still taken a toll on her and she was powerless to hide it— at least from her twin.

“No,” he said.

Wendy gave him a broom to balance with, picked up the bowl of ice, and led them up a flight of winding stone stairs until they reached a plain looking wooden door. It wasn’t the kind of door Dipper would have expected to live in a grand castle. The handle looked like rusty iron, there was no window to peer through, and the wood itself looked matte and unfurnished.

“This is where Soos and I usually sleep,” Wendy told them, kicking the door open— it didn’t even have a lock.

“So where are you gonna go?” Mabel asked, holding her sweater still tighter around herself. 

Wendy shrugged, handing Dipper the bowl of ice. “We’ll make do, there’s tons of rooms around this place. Believe me, I’m glad for an excuse not to listen to Soos snoring.”

And then she left them, promising to be back to sneak them out at dawn before Stan rose. Dipper and Mabel watched her go, looked warily at one another, and then took in the attic room.

It was immediately obvious whose bed was whose. 

The bed on the right was hastily but technically made, with a fluffy green blanket draped over a relatively flat mattress. Two clean-looking pillows stood against the headboard, which was littered with little cuts and marks. 

The bed on the left was a wooden box topped with a thick blanket that had probably once been blue, but now couldn’t decide on what color to be next. It had several discolored patches that had either once been damp, or still were now. A sickeningly orange pillow lay at the foot of the bed, and it looked hard enough to break through the black-painted window between the beds if Dipper threw it right. 

Using the broom to gain some speed over ground, Dipper hurried towards Soos’s bed. Mabel bounded towards the other and Dipper hid a smile, setting the bowl of ice down beside the bed.

Despite being the attic, and despite being hidden behind such an unassuming door, the room was quite spacious. Even with two full sized beds sitting against the walls, there was more than enough room for the two of them. The small fireplace in the corner was easy enough for Dipper to figure out, and before long the room was comfortably warm and cozy.

Between the beds sat a large dresser, and they opened it to find a swath of clothes that somehow all fit them both perfectly. Dipper found a hat nearly identical to the one the gnomes had stolen, except for the fact that it was blue. Mabel found a sweater in a brilliant shade of pink that put her tattered and faded one to shame. “Pink, Dipper!” she repeated, twirling for what felt like the dozenth time. _“Pink!_ I’ve never seen real pink yarn before!”

Dipper, meanwhile, was itching to write down every last detail. “It’s magic, obviously,” he said, pacing to and fro in front of the dresser. “Obviously, right? It has to be. But it can’t just _make_ this stuff out of nothing, right? Or can it?”

His fingers were itching for a quill, itching for parchment, for a way to record—

“The journal!” he gasped. 

He’d completely forgotten about it. He pulled the book from his coat and opened it at once, sudden excitement flooding him. He still had no idea how or why the journal had known to bring them here, but it was because of this book that they were now both warm and fed.

The pages ruffled impatiently, and before Dipper had time to form words it was writing, the ink thick and bold. 

_31341425 421421._

Dipper’s heart sank. The numbers again. He had no idea where to even start. At least with the letters he’d had the alphabet to work with, but… No, even if he converted A to 1, B to 2, and the rest in sequence, this still didn’t make sense. 

“I don’t understand,” he told the book, pacing back and forth between their beds. “What are you trying to tell me?” 

The ink smeared and disappeared, and Dipper could almost imagine someone wiping it away with their palm, frustrated. 

“Sorry,” he added. 

_LWV ILQH,_ the letters spelled, but before Dipper had time to copy them down or begin to shift them, they vanished, and another set of numbers replaced them. 

_31341425 23424235?_

The question mark was intriguing. Clearly they were words, a message. The book was asking something, and Dipper wanted more than anything to answer it.

Something crunched an inch from his face. Dipper yelped— Mabel was reading over his shoulder, munching on a baguette. She took a bite, and a handful of crumbs dropped onto the green blanket under her knees.

“...Where did you get that?” 

Mabel smiled sheepishly. “In the kitchen. When you were making goo-goo eyes at Wendy I took it from one of the cupboards.”

Ignoring a very specific part of that sentence, Dipper scowled at her. “Mabel, that’s stealing!” 

“There were tons! He’s not gonna miss one!” Mabel offered it out. “Besides, Dipper, who knows when we’ll get the chance to eat this kinda stuff again. We’re going back to town tomorrow, remember?” 

Dipper remembered. He remembered the damp, moldy wood that lined McGucket’s shed. He remembered the ‘redneck caviar’ that had served as dinner. He remembered the pies locked behind the glass bakery case.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and reached for the bread. 

The doorknob turned. 

Mabel froze, the baguette dropping onto Wendy’s green blanket, spreading crumbs everywhere. Dipper had just enough time to drop the journal to the floor and kick it under Wendy’s bed before the back of the door _whammed_ against the wall. 

Stan appeared in the doorway, and for the split second before he saw them, he almost didn’t look threatening at all. His ears weren’t flat and angry, his teeth looked like more of a nuisance than a threat, and his eyes were fixed on something on the edge of the tattered red cape that draped over his shoulders in place of clothing.

“Soos, I told you about the pipes an hour ago, why—” He looked up and saw them, and the moment was over.

His eyes flicked between the two of them, widening with every detail he saw. Dipper’s heart pounded as his gaze lingered on the corner of Wendy’s bed, his ears going flat. And then his eyes flicked up to Mabel, who was sitting in the middle of the green blanket.

“Did you steal that from me?” Stan growled, taking a threatening step forward. For half a second Dipper was sure he’d seen the journal, but his claw was pointing at the baguette still lying on the corner of the blanket.

Mabel went white. “I,” she said, clutching her hair. “I—”

_“Answer me!”_

Dipper’s mouth moved but nothing came out. Mabel’s shoulders began to shake.

Stan swiped his massive paw through the air, and for a moment Dipper was sure it was over— and then he held the baguette in the air. _“Liar!”_ Stan roared. “You stole this! And that!” He pointed at the pink sweater on Mabel’s shoulders. His claws tightened around the bread, crushing it to dust. “I offer you room and board and the first thing you do is turn around and steal from me—” 

“It was me!” For once in his life, Dipper’s voice didn’t crack. 

Stan and Mabel had identical reactions, though Dipper knew they came from two completely separate emotions. Mabel’s eyes widened with fear, and Stan’s widened with… something else. Dipper actually wasn’t sure. 

It didn’t matter, because Stan turned to him now, the ruined loaf of bread still held in the air like a weapon. 

“I stole it,” Dipper said, trying to ignore how tightly he clenched his fingers. “And the clothes. See?” He pulled the hat off his head and held it out. “I took this. And I told her to take that.” He pointed at Mabel’s sweater.

The beast just stared at him, something indistinguishable behind his eyes. 

“I,” Dipper said, and swallowed. “We.” He swallowed again. “We don’t have a lot.” 

It was absurd that he felt shame now, absurd that he should be embarrassed to admit this, in front of an eight-foot-tall monster that could kill them without a second thought. An eight-foot-tall monster from whom they’d just stolen. But the shame came anyway, Dipper could feel the heat on his cheeks. 

This, too, didn’t matter. As long as Mabel was safe, nothing else did.

Stan’s eyes found her discarded sweater lying on the floor, still damp from the storm. He stared at it for what felt like a second too long, and Dipper wondered if he could see the crumbs and the jam that littered the threads, evidence of a meal eaten with too much haste to leave room for enjoyment. 

And then the beast looked between them. He looked first at Dipper, standing with his chest held high and his hands balled into fists. He looked to Mabel, huddled with her knees to her chest, shielding herself with the only protection she had. It was quick, it lasted less than a second, but it held some kind of weight that Dipper couldn’t begin to understand. 

And then the beast snorted. 

“You’re a bad liar, kid.” 

The tension snapped at once, and all the air rushed out of Dipper’s body in a weak, “wait, what?” 

Stan dropped the ruined loaf of bread at his feet. “Tomorrow you clean the first floor.” 

Mabel peered out from under her hair. Dipper looked from the loaf of bread up to Stan, who was suddenly staring very intently at the wall. “I don’t understand. You… want us to stay?” 

“You do the work I give you, you keep out of the west wing, and you don’t complain,” Stan snapped. “Or it’s back into the woods for you both. Got it?”

Dipper and Mabel nodded wordlessly. 

Stan took one last, odd look at them both before he turned and swept his red cape around his shoulders, muttered something that sounded like _ingrates,_ and slammed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [WKH EURWKHU LQ WKH ERRN PDB WUB](http://themysteryofgravityfalls.com)   
>  [EXW WUDSSHG KH LV EB FXUVHV VOB](http://themysteryofgravityfalls.com)


	4. Or What You Wish

“Sugarpot!” 

Bud Gleeful nearly tripped over his own feet in haste to catch his son. He barely managed to grab the collar of Gideon’s powder-blue suit, almost pink from the sunset, and dragged him to a reluctant halt in front of the town fountain.

“Daddy!” Gideon yelped, outraged. “Lemme _go!”_

Bud held fast. “Sugarpot, your mother and I have been worried sick. Where on earth have you been?” he demanded. “It’s nearly sundown.”

Gideon pedaled his feet, but Bud was stronger. Running out of breath now, Gideon clung to his father’s arm like a koala and began to kick. Bud waited for him to run out of steam. 

“Boy, take a breath,” he said calmly. “Whatever it is can wait—” 

“No, it _can’t,”_ Gideon wheezed, still kicking.

Ignoring his son’s furious wriggling, Bud picked a leaf from Gideon’s pompadour with his free hand. “Now, don’t tell me you went out digging in the woods again.” 

_“I weren’t digging!”_ Gideon screeched. He gave up trying to kick his father and instead hung limply, panting to catch his breath.

“Then good gravy, what were you doing out in them woods?” Bud set Gideon down on the fountain’s edge. “And what happened to your young lady?”

This was apparently the wrong thing to say. At the very mention of the girl, Gideon’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Daddy, it’s just _awful,”_ he cried, reaching for his father’s embrace. 

Bud wrapped his arms around his boy at once, and a faint _aww_ sounded from behind them. A small crowd of people with nothing better to do had gathered to watch the town darling. Bud wondered if they might take this conversation somewhere more private, but Gideon showed no sign that he minded the extra attention.

“There, there.” Bud patted Gideon’s shoulder gently. “What happened, honeybun?” He frowned. “You didn’t scare her off with one of them local legends, did you?” 

Gideon scoffed. “That’s not what sent her runnin’. It was that _brother_ of hers.” 

A few people gasped. Gideon didn’t even spare them a glance. He jumped from the fountain and began pacing manically. “My Mabel was perfectly happy until he showed up,” he muttered, staring at the cobblestone that lined the edge of the fountain. “And then he poisoned that pretty little head of hers and dragged her into the woods!” Tuts and murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“He did look mighty peculiar,” Bud said slowly. “But I’m sure if you talk all this through with your young lady, everything will be right as rain in no time.” 

_“How’m I supposed to talk with her if she ain’t here?”_ Gideon snapped. “They’re still _in there!”_ He pointed to the trees with unrestrained anger. Bud followed his finger to the empty forest, walled off now by a substantial crowd. 

“Now, now, Honeypot,” he said delicately. “We don’t want to make a scene, calm down a second.”

Gideon did the opposite of calming down; he wrung his hands fervently and began pacing to and fro.

“He’s made her hate me, I’m sure of it.” His eyes were unfocused but incensed. “And she’s never comin’ back, not unless I go back in there and find her, and it’s all his fault—”

“Just think about this, sweetheart!” Bud tried desperately, trying not to look at the swarm of villagers now surrounding them on all sides. “Sooner or later they’ll have to come back to town, right? They can’t very well stay in the woods forever.” 

Something pulled very hard on his shirt.

_“They’re lost to the woods forever!”_

Bud’s top button popped, flying into the air. The weight left his shoulders and a man landed on the stone below him, kicking up dust. A putrid smell of mold, rust, and smoke filled Bud’s nostrils, and the source of it was obvious from a second’s glance at the man at his feet.

McGucket’s beard was still smoking. His face was covered in grease and dirt, and his eyes were somehow wilder than Bud had ever seen them. And Bud had once seen McGucket chase a raccoon for two hours straight.

There was a clear gap in the crowd where McGucket had broken through, and dozens of wide eyes now followed him as he scrambled to his feet. Gideon stopped his pacing abruptly and kicked McGucket’s foot square in the center.

“Get out of here, old man! Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?” 

McGucket didn’t so much as bat an eye to either the kick or the words. “The kids,” he gasped, clawing at Bud’s shirt again. “Please— you gotta help me—” His voice spiked up an octave every other second, and he didn’t appear to be breathing between words. “Come sunset there’s no chance to bring ‘em back, they’ll be lost to the castle—” He broke off as his knee started twitching.

“Castle?” Bud repeated, prying McGucket’s fingers off his shirt. He wiped his hands on his trousers. “Now, just _what_ are you talking about? There’s nothing in them woods but for trees and critters.”

 _“I seen it!”_ McGucket shrieked. “In my Gobble-dy-wonker robut, past the gnome clearin’ and the zombie fields, I seen the castle— tall and dark as anything!”

A few people laughed. Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “Your gobble-what-now?” 

“Gobble-dy-wonker,” McGucket repeated slowly, like he was talking to a child, and not a nine-year-old. “My robut! Stands twelve feet tall, runs faster’n a bear over water, roars loud enough to shatter a zombie skull in seconds.” 

More laughter from the crowd. Bud cracked a smile, though he hid it before Gideon could see.

“I took it to look for them kids,” McGucket continued, either oblivious to or unbothered by his audience’s reaction. “But it was too late, they _found the storm.”_

This was clearly supposed to mean something important, but Bud hadn’t the faintest idea what McGucket was talking about. Neither did anyone else, apparently; a few people coughed awkwardly.

Gideon looked to the sky, which was periwinkle in the twilight. “It’s clear as day.” 

“You don’t understand,” McGucket pleaded, now searching the crowd for a friendly face. Finding none, he began stumbling backwards, twisting his beard madly, his eyes manic. “Time don’t work right there,” he insisted. “It’s always night and always stormy, what from the curse—” He broke off, staring up into the air at some invisible threat. “The— the curse, the demon, I— _I seen it—”_

And he toppled into the fountain, water splashing into the courtyard in every direction. Gideon yelped, jumping to avoid being sprayed. 

The courtyard burst into raucous laughter. Even Gideon smiled, and Bud pretended not to notice the vindictive pleasure sparkling in his son’s eyes. If it overtook Gideon’s anger, he’d take it in a heartbeat. 

“Well, now, Mr. McGucket,” Bud said calmly, peering over the edge of the fountain with his hands on his hips. “That’s quite a story.” 

McGucket, soaked from head to toe, looked helplessly around the courtyard. Every single person was chortling, snorting, wheezing, or giggling. Even the children seemed unaffected by his warnings; a few of them pretended to be Gobblewonkers themselves, roaring and chasing their friends around in wide circles.

Bud pulled McGucket out of the fountain with little effort, not bothering to grab the disgustingly tattered hat that had fallen to the bottom of the pool, and held him up to eye-level. “I think it’s best if you hurry along now before you start scaring the children.”

McGucket opened his mouth, that manic fire still behind his eyes, but Bud dropped him to the ground before he could get a word out. McGucket landed in a damp heap, got to his feet, searched the crowd one last time for sympathy, and came up empty. 

“Teri-bibble, all of you,” he muttered, fishing his hat out of the fountain and stuffing it back on his head. A wave of water cascaded down his front, sending a fresh chorus of giggles through the townspeople. He stomped through the circle of folks, ignoring them.

They all watched in mirth as he scampered back off towards the woods, no doubt to curl up in the shack he called a home. The crowd’s interest quickly dispersed, and not even the shock of Gideon’s spurned love could pull it back. Twilight was waning, and it didn’t do to stay out long after dark.

“Come along now,” Bud told his son, patting him on the shoulder. 

They walked past the shops and townhouses, down the dirt path, until it turned paved and marbled. Gideon hurried to his room before Bud could usher him to dinner, and he let the boy go without complaint. Heartbreak was certainly nothing to scoff at, after all. 

The night fell at last as Bud finished his meal, and by the time he lay beside his wife for bed, he’d all but forgotten the old man’s frantic, desperate story.

And as the moon rose, the slim crescent illuminating the soft wooden desk by the eastern window, Gideon began to smile.

“Castle, you say?” he murmured, intertwining his fingertips. “Well, now. That _is_ quite a story.” 

* * *

The strangest part about breakfast was that, despite everything, it was downright normal. 

Like most mornings, Dipper and Mabel awoke at the same time. Mabel called it _twinstinct._ Dipper called it _having a noisy sister._ She was up and bouncy in seconds, already spinning circles around the room before Dipper had fully opened his eyes.

Dipper couldn’t see out the blackened window between their beds, but he could hear the rain and the wind even through the glass. The storm wasn’t letting up anytime soon; they’d be stuck here for a while. Well, he told himself, they had food, heat, and relatively sane company, so things could be grimmer.

They fetched clothes from the magic dresser, got dressed, and made their way down to the kitchens. Soos was waiting for them this time, but instead of sitting them at the island table and feeding them toast like Wendy, he ushered them out to the dining room, which was wide and cavernous with an elaborate dining table smack in the center, and told them to wait. 

It was such a stark contrast from the cramped and borderline cozy kitchens they’d eaten dinner in last night. The dining table could sit at least a dozen people, but right now there were only two: Wendy and Stan, who were arguing. Stan was sat by the far end of the table, in the largest chair. It was the only one that looked strong enough to support his weight. Wendy was leaning on the windowsill.

Wind rattled the dining room windows, along with a fresh patter of rain. Though he couldn’t see the trees or the vines that grew on the castle, Dipper could certainly hear how the wind rammed them into the glass.

Mabel hopped onto an ornate dining chair, but Dipper hung back, staring at the eight-foot-tall monster sitting at the end of the table like he did this every morning. And after a moment’s thought, Dipper realized he probably did.

In fact, Stan didn’t look much like a monster anymore— besides the fact that he was eight feet tall and sprouting horns. His matted fur seemed less mangey and more like it was simply unkempt; it stuck out at odd angles and clumped together in patches around his neck. Dipper could see now that the red cape that had been so mysterious and dramatic last night was really just a ratty blanket tied haphazardly around his neck. Frayed threads lined the edges and Dipper caught a large torn patch just over his right shoulder. And even though he was arguing with Wendy, Stan’s eyes didn’t carry a trace of the menacing glint that had struck Dipper straight through the heart when he’d stood to protect his sister. He wasn’t furious, he was exasperated.

“I checked the wards last night, there’s nothing wrong with my sigils,” Wendy groaned, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling. Dipper got the feeling they’d been at this for a while.

Stan folded his arms. “Two gremlins walked in last night, so clearly you messed up somewhere.”

Irritation spiked up Dipper’s spine. “How hard is it to see that we’re just human beings,” he hissed to Mabel, joining her atop an adjacent chair.

“I think he means it as a term of endearment,” Mabel whispered back. 

Personally, Dipper didn’t think the word _endearment_ applied to a single aspect of the freshly-awakened Stan. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Stan said, finally noticing them. He looked from Dipper’s hat to Mabel’s sweater— both of which they’d taken from the attic dresser— and Dipper tensed, waiting for last night’s anger to resurface. But before Stan could say anything, the kitchen door opened with a _bang_ and Soos emerged, five bowls balanced on his arms.

“Morning, dudes, who’s ready for some mu-mu-mu- _mush?”_ he cried. He began dancing around the table, setting a bowl down in front of each of them, singing as he went. “Doodly-do, puttin’ breakfast out, doodly do, forgot the spoons.” 

“On it,” Wendy said. She wiggled her fingers in a complicated motion, and spoons materialized onto the table. Dipper couldn’t hold back a gasp; they were tarnished but there was no mistaking the sound they made as they hit the table. These were pure silver. 

Stan snatched his bowl as Soos went to set it down, scowling. “Soos, what did I tell you about the singing.”

“Not to do it!” Soos said at once, and winked. “Don’t worry, I remember.”

Stan sighed. 

Dipper looked into his bowl. Grey, homogenous goo looked back.

He wrinkled his nose and glanced around the table, but no one else was having second thoughts. Stan drank his whole bowl in one go, not bothering with utensils. Wendy kept leaning on the windowsill as she ate, though not with as much gusto as Soos, who filled the cavernous dining hall with noise as he tucked in. 

“Dipper!” Mabel shouted directly in his ear, making him jump about a mile. She shoved a spoonful of the grey stuff in his face. “You gotta try this, it’s _delicious!”_

“I’ll take your word for it,” Dipper muttered, pushing his bowl over to her. He looked at Stan. “Don’t you guys have, like, oatmeal?”

“You get what you get,” Stan grumbled, and that was the last he spoke for the next half hour. 

He gave Wendy a noncommittal grunt when she finally left to reset the outside wards, and didn’t bat an eye when Soos managed to spill his entire bowl of mush over his front and had to retreat back into the kitchens to clean up. But eventually Mabel got bored after finishing Dipper’s breakfast and began bombarding him with questions, and he could only stay quiet through three.

“Do you have toe beans?” got her a grunt. 

“Do you have a tail?” procured an exasperated sigh.

“Why are the windows painted all boring and _bleugh?”_

Stan’s ear twitched. “They were like that when I got here,” he said, in a tone that clearly meant _stop talking._

Mabel, of course, ignored this. “When _did_ you get here?”

Stan stood abruptly, glared at the kitchen doors, and barked, _“Soos!”_

The kitchen doors opened instantaneously to reveal Soos, who was somehow covered in even more grey mush than when he’d left. 

“What’s up, Bossman?” 

Stan grabbed his empty bowl and jerked a thumb at Dipper and Mabel. “Take the short one to the armory and the girl to the laundry room,” he said, heading for the kitchen doors. “Make sure she doesn’t eat the soap.”

“Question,” Soos said, holding his hand up. “May _I_ still eat the soap.” 

Stan sighed.

* * *

After dropping off Mabel, Soos led Dipper to the armory and set him to work.

The armory was about half as large as the dining room, but it was still enormous, stuffed to the brim with suits of armor, old weapons that looked like they hadn’t seen the light of day in decades, and piles of worn crates filled with everything from eyeglasses to dusty rugs. Spiderwebs threaded through pikes and spears, and a blanket of dust covered the floor so thoroughly that Dipper knew for a fact none of this stuff had been touched in years.

Soos handed him a bucket of off-color water and a grey rag out of nowhere, bade him good luck, and wandered back down the hallway, whistling to himself. Dipper was starting to understand Stan’s attitude about the singing. 

His arms were tired after an hour, and his legs were tired after two. He hadn’t done work like this in years, not since their parents had tried setting Mabel and him up with jobs in a last ditch effort. Dipper’s noodly arms had been useless then, and they were useless now. It was bizarre to think that Mabel and he would be working age by the end of the summer. At least she’d be beside him, wherever they went. 

After another hour, he was nearly done polishing the second suit of armor. 

Dipper’s knees wobbled as he tried to hold his balance, one foot on either edge of the crate full of eyeglasses. He reached as high as he could, but the rag only brushed the helmet’s nose. Biting his tongue in concentration, Dipper surged to his tiptoes— 

And promptly fell.

Fortunately, he missed the crate full of extremely breakable glass. Unfortunately, he landed in the bucket of muddy water that had begun to stink of eggs. And now he did, too. 

Mabel probably smelled like roses and lavender by now, Dipper thought bitterly as he peeled off his coat. It wasn’t too badly damaged, just a little damp on the left side. Maybe if he just dried it by the fireplace tonight, the smell would disappear. He shook it out, taking care not to splash silver polish on his face, and the journal tumbled out of his inside pocket.

It landed with a _flump_ on the wooden floor, kicking up a fresh cloud of dust.

Dipper had forgotten about it again. The commotion of last night and breakfast and now all of _this_ had completely driven it from his mind. He picked it up at once, blinking as the golden hand on the cover reflected lamplight directly in his eye.

Like when they’d first reached the castle, the book vibrated restlessly in his hands. He opened it to see ink already pouring impatiently over the parchment, spelling two hasty words. They vanished before Dipper could commit them to memory replaced by two more, the letters identical. Again, they disappeared, and again, they rewrote themselves.

“Hold on— slow down,” Dipper told the book, looking from side to side for something to write with. “C’mon, there’s gotta be a pen around here somewhere.” 

And at once he felt a sudden weight in his hand. He turned the goose-feather pen between his fingers, mesmerised. “Whoa.”

The pages rustled irritably. 

_CKYZ COTM,_ the journal wrote again. _CKYZ COTM. CKYZ COTM!_

Dipper flipped to the back of the journal. Even though the first half of the book was also blank, the pages felt used, somehow sacred. So instead he scribbled on the flat, unmarred parchment in the back of the journal, and was just able to jot down the last letter before the words vanished again. Dipper set to work decoding the message, shifting the letters over, and found the solution on his sixth try.

“West… wing,” he read slowly.

The book trembled again, and the ink began to splatter. 

_CKYZ COTM,_ it repeated desperately, underlining both words. _53211112 53341432,_ it wrote, underlining these too. _53211112 53341432. CKYZ COTM._

Dipper had to assume the numbers meant the same thing, but he jotted them down just in case. “I can’t take you to the west wing,” he hissed at the journal, looking over his shoulder just in case Stan was about to pop out behind a suit of armor to scare him. “That’s the one place Stan told us not to go.” 

_TUZ OSVUXZGTZ,_ the book said. Dipper shifted the letters over six times. 

“Not important?” He huffed. “It’s very important! He’ll kick us out!” 

As if to drive home his point, thunder echoed through the castle, muffled by the walls but still strong enough to make the floor tremble. They couldn’t go back into the woods, not now, not into that storm. And where would they go? Town? McGucket’s shack was probably in shambles by now, and Gideon would be waiting for them, and their parents couldn’t—

Besides. Mabel was happy here. They had ample food and warmth and a bed for the first time in so long. Betraying Stan’s orders could take that all away.

The book hesitated. And then, slowly, it spelled out a new set of words. 

_ZXAYZ SK._

“Trust you?” Dipper blinked. “Why should I…” 

_SOHDVH, GLSSHU._

Dipper took a deep breath.

When it boiled down, he only had one choice to make: trust the journal, or trust Stan? True, Stan let Dipper and Mabel sleep in his attic and he’d given them food— if that stuff counted as food, anyway— but he’d barely said a word to Dipper that wasn’t _faster, sloppy,_ or _gremlin._

The journal, on the other hand, had led them away from Gideon. Just before the gnomes attacked, it had tried to warn them. It had helped them to the castle, helped them to safety. 

What if it was trying to help him now? 

Dipper exhaled slowly. “...okay,” he said. “Just— be cool, all right? Don’t get me in trouble.”

The parchment rustled sheepishly. 

* * *

The west wing was atop the highest spire on, predictably, the west side of the castle. Dipper lost count of the steps after seventy or so, and lost his stamina a few minutes after that. The journal followed Dipper’s instruction and didn’t leap out from under his coat, but Dipper could feel it quivering. He pressed on.

The stairs began winding in a tight circle, the walls drawing closer and closer as Dipper climbed higher. If the windows hadn’t been blacked out, they might have opened to a pleasant view of the forest. But they showed nothing but thick black paint, dried for years, and the only light came from the now occasional oil lamps that had to think for a few seconds before they illuminated.

And then, at last, Dipper reached a door. 

He pulled the book from his coat and held it to his chest, staring at the flat wood that faced him. It was nothing like the attic door, common and out of place in the otherwise ornate castle. The door to the west wing was adorned with iron in an intricate mirrored pattern. The window near the top was blacked out like all the others, and three thin iron bars protected it from harm. Even in the dim light of a single, exhausted oil lamp, the doorhandle shone bright and golden. 

This door was used. Often.

The book trembled, feeling warm under his palms. Trying to keep his breathing under control— falling down those steps would _not_ be a good idea— Dipper opened the cover.

 _JR LQ,_ the journal said, letters written with solid but shaking lines. And they didn’t vanish this time. Instead the words shifted and shimmered, as if the ink itself was shaking with excitement. Each letter flickered, rewriting itself until the words spelled _HP JO._

Dipper decoded it without a second thought. It was a single shift of letters. 

He took another breath— inhale, hold for two, exhale— and pushed open the door.

Twin oil lamps flickered to life, and Dipper froze.

The room was almost completely destroyed. Broken wood shards lay scattered across the floor, over the open wood, over the faded blue carpet, and some pieces were stuck to torn tapestries that hung on the walls. Whatever furniture was left was broken; chair legs were missing, tables were smashed down the middle. A battered chandelier hung, lopsided, from the ceiling.

Crumpled parchment littered nearly every surface. Some of the pages bore neat cursive writing, tight and organized. Some showed illustrations of sigils, foreign symbols, and geometric patterns— Dipper thought one looked rather like the moon. And some were covered in fervent, haphazard slashes of ink that sent goosebumps up Dipper’s arms.

But the parchment wasn’t what made him step into the room.

Hanging on the far wall was a small wooden frame. Like the doorway to the attic, it looked downright commonplace. The wood was old and unvarnished, and one of the corners looked askew, as if it hadn’t been cut quite right, but the maker hadn’t cared enough to fix it.

Within the frame lay a painting. The center of the canvas bore a jagged slash, tearing the painting in two. The left half had collapsed, hanging low over the bottom of the frame, but the right side was still intact. 

Dipper took a few steps towards it, gingerly stepping over a pile of broken glass. 

Careful oil paint spelled out the soft edges of driftwood that curved into the shape of a boat. It had either faded with time, or been painted to look like aging wood, long since abandoned. 

But it wasn’t abandoned. Standing atop the deck was a boy. He was smiling beside the ship’s mast, if it could be called a mast. A bandage covered his chin, and his skin was pink from the sun. The artist had painted a soft blue sky behind him, peppered with flat white clouds that suggested this was a summer scene. 

Dipper reached for the painting. His fingers brushed the canvas that hung over the bottom of the frame and came back clean. No dust. 

He reached again— 

And the book toppled out of his hands.

It landed on the wooden floor with a hard _thud,_ astronomical in the room’s silence. Dipper snatched the journal up to stuff it back into his coat— and stopped short as his eyes found the balcony. 

The window was thrown open to the storm, showcasing the trees that danced in the storm, but the wind was completely silent. The rain, pelting the sky, didn’t touch the room. 

Sitting beside the balcony was an ornate wooden stand. Resting atop the stand was a crystalline glass case. And sitting inside the glass case was a book with a maroon cover, brass caps, and a golden hand winking in the faint lamplight.

Dipper stumbled towards it, kicking up crumpled bits of parchment and nearly tripping over a decapitated head stool. The air shimmered, and a thin _1_ appeared over the golden hand. 

The journal in his hands quivered. 

Dipper didn’t need to be told. It was as if the book was moving his arms, as if he knew exactly what it wanted him to do. Barely breathing, he hefted the glass cover off of the stand, set it on the balcony, and placed his journal beside its brother.

Something _happened._

Warm blue light enveloped the journals, and something _fizzled_ in the air, sending Dipper’s hair on end. The covers flew open, pages flipping of their own accord, and as they moved Dipper could see words appearing, some encoded, some in plain writing. And not just words, but half-formed pictures began to draw themselves onto the pages. Dipper caught sight of a gnome, a magnificent looking horse with a horn on its forehead, and a hunched-over looking creature with dead eyes—

Lightning forked the sky through the open window just as the pages stopped moving. Both books were open, and words appeared, not in fractured letters or numbers, but in a neat cursive script. 

_You have,_ read the first journal. 

_my thanks,_ read the other. 

The ink melted away.

“You’re welcome,” Dipper said, stunned. “I… who are you? What are you?” Words, questions he didn’t know he’d had, they all came spilling out. “Who made you? Why did you bring us here? Why were you in the forest, what—” 

_Can’t explain,_ the first book said. 

_Take me,_ said the second.

“Take you?” Dipper repeated. “You mean, like... steal you?” 

The pages ruffled affirmingly at the edges. And then they began to turn, and Dipper watched, amazed, as ink poured onto the parchment, glistening black in the moonlight. Quick brushes painted trees. Two long, smooth lines shaped a river winding between them. Thick, careful strokes shaped a door, then a spire, then the rest of the castle. Red ink welled in a thick, heavy bead at the door, then began to spill down the parchment in a carefully controlled line— a path. 

The red line slid down through the trees and crossed the river. It hesitated at a clearing, reversed, and was about to double back across the river again when all the breath left Dipper’s lungs. 

Because he could feel rather than hear the presence behind him. 

The book sensed it too; the map vanished and two words replaced it. 

_FOLLOW IT,_ the first book begged. 

_TAKE ME,_ pleaded the other.

The floor trembled. His heart trembling just as much, Dipper stuffed his journal under his coat and picked up the other—

_“Get your hands off that!”_

Stan had reached him. More accurately, Stan had reached the journal. He towered before the window, lightning striking at exactly the right time to cast every inch of him in electric, terrifying light. In a flash, he grabbed the book, trying to tug it out of Dipper’s grip.

Dipper pulled, and it slipped an inch between Stan’s fingers— he wasn’t using his claws to hold it, and the fur over his fingertips didn’t give him enough grip. Dipper dug his heels into the floor, pulling hard.

 _“Let— go—”_ Stan growled, curling his claws into the spine. “Or _else!”_

Dipper’s fingers slipped. Frantic, he leapt, grabbing at the pages— gravity did the rest of the work and he was falling, parchment clutched in his hand— 

He felt rather than heard the page tear.

Pain, sharp and sudden, ran through him in a single, agonizing line from his forehead to his feet, and he stumbled backwards with a cry. The journal landed hard on the ground.

A howling roar deafened his ears and the room shook; Stan had fallen too. He was on the ground for a split second before his limbs began twisting, cape thrashing, fur flying in angry tufts through the air as he got to his feet.

 _“Get out!”_ he roared, and Dipper ducked just in time to avoid a swipe of his claws. They hit the wall instead, tearing the wallpaper to shreds. _“You ingrate!_ You _gremlin!”_ Stan spun around, and every inhale raised his stature by a foot, every exhale sent crumpled pages and loose debris flying. “Do you have any idea, _any idea—”_ His hands were shaking. _“GET OUT!”_ Stan repeated, his voice loud enough to make Dipper’s bones tremble. _“If I ever see you in this castle again, I’ll— I’ll—”_

At a loss for words, Stan launched a fist at the wall, cracking the wood clean in two. 

The chandelier shattered to the ground, glass flying in every direction. 

Dipper ran.

* * *

Stan didn’t hear the door slam and didn’t care. 

He sank to his knees, picked up the book, and took a deep breath.

The journal was warm to the touch. Even though Stan knew it was nothing but his imagination, battered and bruised and lonely, for a moment when he held it to his chest it was almost as if Ford was here with him again. 

But he wasn’t. Stan knew the book was empty, just as it had been from the moment he had found it lying in the courtyard, right where he’d dropped it. Empty and useless, no matter what he did. 

Stan’s eye found the torn page lying on the floor. He took it between his fingers, taking care not to puncture the parchment with his claws. Lightning lit the sky through the open window, and for a split-second the page lit up, words and images filling the parchment from corner to corner. Stan’s heart leapt—

The sky darkened, and the page was blank again. Just as it had been for three decades.

A gnarled, embittered cry left his throat. He turned the page over. Blank parchment stared at him for a moment before it shivered, paled, and disintegrated.

Deep, aching pain slithered down Stan’s spine as dust fell through his fingers. He dug his claws into his face, feeling damp fur beside his eyes. He could barely feel the journal landing between his legs, the golden hand dull even in the moonlight. 

It was nothing but phantom pain, he knew, nothing but his mind’s desperate attempt to explain away the agony in his heart. Or maybe the damn book was enchanted after all, hell if Stan knew.

Nothing in this damn castle made any sense, none of it, and the more he tried to understand, the less he knew, even after thirty years. All he could do was run in circles, chasing false hope after false hope, breaking this castle bit by bit.

Losing piece after piece of his brother.

Lightning forked the sky. After thirty years of it, the storm had long since lost its sway on Stan’s nerves. But he looked out all the same, at the old gardens swallowed by rainwater, at the unassuming mud path that led to the iron gates, at the dark, angry trees that lined the edge of the forest. It was a cold, monotonous view that hadn’t changed in decades.

Stan wondered if Ford missed it, wherever he was.

* * *

Dipper’s heart had never pounded so hard, he’d never felt fear like this before, never in his life. 

With one arm held out for balance and the other tucked tight against his chest to keep the journal safe, Dipper flew down the stone steps, down the hallway, and down the staircase to the first floor. He skidded to a halt at the entryway and careened down the right corridor, panting hard. 

“Mabel!” he called, trying to remember which door led to the laundry room. He'd only seen it once before, and they hadn't stopped for long, but he thought he remembered it being somewhere on this side of the castle. Calling Mabel's name as loud as he could, he pulled open door after door with shaking arms. Some were empty, some were stuffed with junk like the armory, but none of them had Mabel. 

And then the scent of lavender, strawberries, vanilla, and a flower he couldn't name filled his nostrils and he skidded to a halt. 

"Mabel!" he said between gasps, as he tugged open the door. Mabel was standing on an overturned bucket, leaning over an enormous washbasin of soapy water. Damp clothes hung off the edge in every direction; Dipper recognized the red flannel as Wendy's, and the light grey tunic as Soos's— though it now looked more pink than grey. 

"Hey, Dipdop," Mabel said, waving at him. A handful of bubbles floated into the air, and that sickly mix of perfumes wafted over Dipper in a fresh wave. He bit back a cough and reached for her hand. 

"Mabel, we have to go." 

"Go?" Mabel pulled Soos's shirt out of the washbin and wrung it out, splattering soapy water all over the floor. "Go where?"

"There’s no time!” Dipper yanked her off the bucket, and she stumbled beside him.

“Dipper, what’s going on?” she demanded, wiping goo off her shoulder. “What happened?” 

“I—” Dipper trembled, guilt and fear mingling in his stomach. “I can’t explain, but we have to go _right now.”_

“Buh— _whaugh!”_ Mabel yelped as he dragged her out the door. He ran down the hallway towards the entry way, adrenaline fueling every step. “Dipper! Dipper, stop, what about our stuff?” she cried. 

“There’s— no— time—” Dipper panted, pulling her down the grand staircase. Thunder boomed, rattling the windows. Dipper imagined lightning followed it, but they couldn’t see past the black-painted glass. 

“Dipper,” Mabel grunted, finally pulling him to a halt in front of the entryway doors. “Would you just tell me what’s going on?” Her frown fell the moment she saw that Dipper was shaking from head to toe. “Whoa,” she said softly. “Dipper, what happened?” 

“Stan,” Dipper managed, trying to pull her to the door. “He— gnomes or no gnomes, Mabel, we can’t stay here, not another minute, he’s gonna—” 

“Okay, okay, I trust you,” Mabel said quickly. “But…” She bit her lip. “Dipper, I—” 

_“Dudes!”_

Soos was running down the grand staircase, panting just as hard as Dipper. Wendy appeared behind him a moment later, axe in hand. 

“What’s going on?” she said, glancing around for the threat. Finding none, she stared at Mabel and Dipper. “Whoa, are you guys leaving?” 

“Don’t!” Soos said. “It’s bad out there, dudes, and you don’t even have a hat.” 

Startled, Dipper pressed his hand to his head. It was bare; his hat must have fallen off somewhere between the west wing and the entry hall.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, hoping Wendy wasn’t close enough to see his forehead. “We can’t stay, he’s gonna kill us—” 

“He’s not gonna kill you,” Wendy said calmly, though her jaw clenched tight.

Dipper’s voice leapt up an octave. “You didn’t see him!” 

The castle trembled; whether it was thunder or Stan, Dipper didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

“Rrgh,” he said through gritted teeth, “there’s no time for this. Mabel, let’s _go.”_

He pushed the door, and for a horrible moment he knew that his strength alone wouldn’t be enough. But then Mabel was beside him, pushing too, and the gigantic iron-clad door swung open, storm winds howling into the entry hall, drowning out Wendy and Soos’s frantic yelling.

Dipper took his sister’s hand and ran. 

* * *

The second they were behind the trees, the scant moonlight vanished under the canopy. Rain still filtered through the leaves, soaking Dipper’s hair and turning Mabel’s sweater dark red. Wind flew through the trunks, icy and unforgiving. They didn’t stop, not when something slithered by their ankles, not when something shifted in the bushes, not when they heard a distant skittering in the air.

They didn’t stop until Dipper’s ankle hit another root and he fell, face first, into soaking moss. 

Mabel helped him up and he tested it; it wasn’t twisted again, just still hurt from the last injury. 

She shivered. “Dipper, what happened?” 

They were far away enough from the castle now, so Dipper took a breath, leaned against the tree trunks, and told her. “I went into the west wing.” 

“You _what?”_

“I know!” Dipper said, holding his hands up. “I know, and I probably shouldn’t have, but I just— the journal was telling me to go, and I wanted answers—” He pulled out the book and held it out. “There’s a second one, Mabel, and whoever was writing the codes must have made it too, because when I put them together—” 

“So you got us kicked out because of your dumb book?” Mabel gaped at him, her manic ride-or-die energy gone in an instant. “Dipper, what the _butt?”_

“It’s not dumb!” Dipper protested. “And the other one—” 

“We had beds, Dipper! _Beds!”_ Mabel threw her hands in the air. “And a fireplace, and food, and a whole bathroom with a tub, and you just—” She grabbed her hair and tugged, groaning. “And now it’s all gone, because you cared about your stupid book more than me.” 

The instant the last words left her mouth, Dipper saw the regret on her face. She tugged her hair, cheeks burning, and stared at the forest floor.

More guilt twisted in Dipper’s stomach, overtaking the fear. A heavy drop of rainwater landed on his nose, splashing into his eyes. He wiped them.

“Mabel, I…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

His fingers tightened around the journal. 

_It was trying to tell us something,_ he wanted to say. _It needs our help._

But Mabel was biting her lip, which meant she was about to cry, and that took precedence. Dipper tucked the journal back under his coat. 

“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. Mabel took it. “McGucket’s place is probably gone by now, but the library’s always open, I bet it’s warm enough. I’ll find a mystery book and you can sleep under the table.”

Mabel followed him out of the clearing reluctantly. “We could still go back.” 

“No, we—” 

_“I_ could still go back,” Mabel amended. “He got mad at you, not me.” 

She didn’t mean it, Dipper could tell by her tone, but it still stung. Especially because she was right. 

There was nothing waiting for her back in town. Even the promise of the library meant less to her than it did to Dipper. There were no fun kitchens, or magic spells, or giant fluffy monsters to annoy. There was just McGucket’s undoubtedly demolished shack, delicious pastries locked behind gold they didn’t have, and Gideon.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, stopping every so often to wring out their clothes. The rain wasn’t thinning at all, and the wind fought them every step of the way.

And then, just as they crossed over a small creek into a clearing, something rustled in the bushes directly in front of them.

Mabel froze, and Dipper frantically searched the ground for a stick. After finding nothing but moss and wet leaves, he balled his hands into fists and held them at the ready. The bushes rustled again, and— 

“Eugh,” Mabel groaned. _“You_ guys again?” 

Two gnomes, covered from head to toe with leaves and twigs, had stumbled out of the brush. Neither of them had Jeff’s brown beard, and Dipper couldn’t for the life of him remember what any of the other ones had been called. He was about to ask— and then about to wonder why he was bothering to ask— when the gnomes caught sight of them and screeched.

Mabel clapped her hands over her ears, wincing. Dipper raised his fist, ready to strike— 

_“Run!”_ the gnomes shrieked in unison. 

More of them scrambled into the clearing, flailing and screaming, stumbling over one another in their haste. Dipper thought he saw a brown beard in the crowd, but amid the commotion of about two dozen panicking gnomes, it was hard to make out clearly.

And then as quickly as they’d come they were gone, living Mabel and Dipper alone in the clearing.

“Well,” Dipper said, “that was… weird, right?” He turned to Mabel, but she wasn’t listening. Her hand was to the ground and her eyes were wide.

“Dipper...” she said warily.

Dipper set his hand beside hers, fingers pressing into the moss. He could feel it too. The ground was trembling— but this wasn’t thunder. Something was coming. 

“We should run,” Dipper said. “We should definitely run, we should—” 

And the forest floor cracked open under their feet. Dipper had a split second to see lime-green light emanating from the depths of the earth before steam exploded into the air, blasting him off his feet.

He landed hard on his back and rolled over, pushing to his hands and knees. Another tremble broke his balance and he fell; pain shot through his ankle as it smashed against a rock. 

Another sound had begun to rise: a low, growing moan— no, _moans—_ that signaled not an urgent threat but an inevitable one. Head spinning and throbbing in tandem, Dipper forced himself to his feet and grabbed a tree trunk for support. 

Bright green light threw the trees into sharp focus, steam still billowing from the crack in the ground. It was wide enough to fall through. And Mabel was nowhere to be seen.

“Mabel!” he shouted, letting go of the tree. The second he took a step, his ankle throbbed in agony and he had to grab the tree again to keep from falling over. _“Mabel!”_

“Dipper?” he heard her call from somewhere to his left. “Dipper, _help!”_

Dipper sucked in a breath and pushed off from the tree again, hobbling across the trembling forest floor. It didn’t matter if his foot fell off, he had to get to his sister. He made it a dozen steps before his ankle gave out and he tumbled through a thicket of ferns, landing at the edge of the chasm.

_“Dipper!”_

Mabel was on the other side of the crack, desperately swinging a stick in all directions. Her back was to a tree trunk twice as wide as she was tall, and flanking her on all sides were a dozen… people.

Except they weren’t people. Not quite. Dipper’s blood ran cold as one of them caught a ray of green light. Its skin was old and rotting, torn and peeling in patches over its arms. Its face was halfway to a skull, the skin stretched so thin and tight that Dipper would have mistaken it for bone if it weren’t for the bits dangling off its chin. And its eyes were nothing but glowing, empty pools of light.

 _Zombies._ Dipper had read about these— but only in far-fetched fantasy books meant to scare children. They weren’t supposed to be real.

Magic castle, he thought to himself, zombie-infested forest. It kind of made sense.

Movement from the crevasse caught his eye; more of them were crawling out of the ground, drawn to the sky like Mabel to a baked good. They held their arms out in a stiff, awkward fashion, hands outstretched, and the closest one closed its fingers around Mabel’s hair.

She stabbed it through the chest with her stick. It stumbled back in surprise, letting go.

“Run!” Dipper shouted, and immediately realized his mistake: half of Mabel’s zombies turned at the sound of his voice and began to plod their way towards him. Heart pounding, Dipper tried to move, but there was no budging his ankle; he couldn’t even stand.

“No!” Mabel cried, running for him. Her sweater caught on a low-hanging branch and she lurched backwards, arms flailing, her hair falling in her face as she tried to untangle it. 

The zombies were feet away from her— then a foot away, then an inch— and there was nothing Dipper could do but watch. 

“Mabel—” he called, voice hoarse and barely audible over the wind, the rain, and the zombie’s growing moans. “Mabel, I’m sorry—” 

Another zombie crawled out from the forest floor, this one without legs, and pulled its way towards him slowly but surely. Dipper kicked desperately, and the zombie’s teeth sunk into his shoe. He shook it off, yelping. 

“I— I wanted answers so bad that I lost us the only home we had!” The zombie took two more bites of his shoe, decided it wasn’t appetizing, and continued to crawl towards him. “Now we’re toast, it’s all my fault, and—” 

He broke off as the zombie clamped its hand around his ankle. It bared its teeth, preparing to bite. Across the crevasse he could see Mabel clinging to the tree branch, tears in her eyes. This was it, this was the end. They were alone, hopelessly lost in the woods, and no one could save them--

_WHAM._

The zombie’s face shattered into a thousand pieces, its teeth flying in twenty different directions. Green goo— Dipper didn’t want to think about what it was, or what it once might have been— splattered all over his face, but before he could reach up to wipe it off, something enormous curled around his chest and lifted him off of the ground. Out of instinct he grabbed tight, and his fingertips felt fur.

And then he was flying for a terrifying three seconds. 

They landed hard on the other side of the crevasse, directly in the middle of the zombie circle. The arms, strong but surprisingly gentle, plopped Dipper down beside his sister. His ankle flared in pain as weight returned to it, but Mabel grabbed him before he could fall.

“You two!” Stan barked, looking over his shoulder and pointing at them with a menacing claw. “Back to the castle! Now!” 

“But— but—” Dipper stammered. 

A zombie leapt at Stan and in a flash, Stan grabbed the tree beside him and uprooted it. In one blistering swing, he sent the zombie flying into the night air. 

“I said _now!”_

Mabel yanked his arm and pulled him into the trees. They made it to a tall stump before Dipper had to stop, his leg felt like it was on fire. The zombies didn’t even see them; they shuffled past, arms outstretched, heading for Stan.

“You undead _jerks,”_ Stan bellowed, loud enough to make the trees shake— or perhaps that was just the wind. _“Who’s ready to die twice?”_ And he swung the tree again. It left his hands, flying into the forest, taking out half a dozen zombies on the way. 

It wasn’t enough. Two dozen took their place, and despite Stan’s next weapon— his fists— they were on him in seconds. Mabel clutched Dipper as Stan fell to the ground, howling, overtaken by the weight. The zombies bit his hide, his shoulder, his legs— they tore his cape to shreds, red scraps of fabric lying ruined over the moss. 

For a horrible, horrible second Dipper was sure it was over. 

And then Stan’s hand emerged from the cluster and found one of the zombie’s throats, claws tightening around it. And an unearthly sound began to rise.

It was nothing like the terrifying, alien roar they’d heard from the forest the night they’d stumbled upon the castle. It wasn’t alien at all. It was an amalgamation of every beast from every corner of the world, each of them wretched and agonized. It rumbled low enough to make Dipper’s bones shudder, and screeched high enough to make his brain rattle. It was so feral, so raw, and so full of undeniable, savage fury that Dipper couldn’t move, not even to breathe. 

The zombie’s head exploded. 

Green ooze that had once been blood but long since rotted away splattered the trees and the forest floor as, one by one, the other zombies followed suit. They dropped like flies, one after the other, and soon the clearing was full of corpses, one again, laid to rest— leaving Stan standing over them all. 

The roar faded to nothing and for a moment he just stood there.

He swayed. Each breath looked like agony— it probably was; even from the trees Dipper could see patches on his arms and back where the zombies had torn his fur out. He was covered in green muck, but there were also a few spots on his back that looked dangerously red. His legs quivered under the weight of his body.

Stan’s eyes scanned the trees and found theirs. His face slowly shifted from his signature scowl to what almost looked like relief.

And then he fell to the forest floor in a dead faint. 

* * *

“Well, this isn’t gonna work,” Dipper said after their fifth try. “He’s the size of a boulder.”

The rain didn’t help. Stan’s fur was slick enough already with the zombie goo, but with the rain it was practically impossible to get a good grip on him. That combined with the fact that Mabel and Dipper were twelve and had matching noodle arms meant that Dipper’s plan of carrying Stan back to the castle was effectively useless.

Mabel wiped her forehead. It was pointless, rain was still coming down in buckets, but Dipper appreciated her dedication to the effort.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Mabel protested, gesturing down at him. Dipper’s stomach turned at the sight of a sticky red patch of fur on his right shoulder.

“Okay, new plan,” he said. “We go back to the castle and get Wendy and Soos. They can lift him.” 

Mabel chewed her lip. “Dipper, there’s stuff out here, if we leave him alone he might get hurt.” 

“It’s the only plan we have,” Dipper insisted, though Mabel had a point. “We can’t carry him back on our own, it would take, like, a hundred of us.” 

Mabel gasped. “Dipper, that’s it!” 

Though he knew it was crazy, Dipper still looked around wildly, half-expecting to see an army of Dipper-clones crawling out of the forest. Of course there was nothing, and he hid his sigh of relief so Mabel wouldn’t see it. Luckily, she was too busy pacing around the edge of the clearing— Dipper had to pull her away from the edge of the crevasse, which was now just as dark as the rest of the forest, green light long gone. 

“What was that doofus’s name, again?” she was muttering, tugging impatiently at her hair. “Jeb? Jet?” 

Dipper blinked. “Jeff?” 

Mabel snapped her fingers. “That was it!” And then she cupped her hands to her mouth and Dipper had exactly one second to realize what her idea was, and realize that it was a very bad idea, before she bellowed, _“JEFF!”_

Nothing happened. 

“Mabel,” he hissed, tugging her arm. “I don’t know if you remember, but the last time we saw those guys we were _running away from them.”_

“Trust me,” she said, batting his arm away. 

“But—” 

“Dipper, just trust me,” Mabel said firmly. And then, much louder, she called into the trees. “C’mon, guys, you can come out! The zombies are dead. Again,” she added after a moment’s pause.

Slowly, cautiously, little red hats began to creep out from the underbrush. The gnomes clustered together like crumbs collecting at the bottom of a breadbasket, some clutching their companions’ arms, some stacked atop one another. Dipper’s first thought was that there were more of them now than he’d ever seen before; if they’d had a strike team following them yesterday, this was the whole flock. The zombies must have driven them out of their homes.

Coughing and brushing dirt off his shoulders, Jeff emerged from the pack. “Whoa,” he said, catching sight of Stan’s prone, gash-riddled body. “Yikes.” 

“Yikes is right,” Mabel said, and cleared her throat. “Listen, guys, I know we’ve had our differences.”

“You spurned our love,” Jeff said, nodding. 

“Right, and you tried to kidnap me,” Mabel agreed. 

Dipper stared between the two of them. 

“But we were wondering if you could do us a favor,” Mabel continued, batting her eyes. “Can you guys help us carry Stan back to the castle? It’s just that he’s really hurt, and we can’t do it ourselves, and Dipper’s all injured…” 

Dipper huffed, trying to stand up straight. Mabel kicked his ankle and he bent over double, wheezing in pain.

“And why should we help you?” Jeff narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “You broke our collective one-thousand hearts.” 

“I have a habit of doing that,” Mabel muttered sheepishly, tugging her hair. 

And Dipper was reminded again of Gideon, and of the awful town he’d sentenced them to, all for the chance of some answers. Well, journal or no journal, Stan couldn’t be mad at them if they saved his butt. Dipper wasn’t going to take the castle away from Mabel again, not now that they had another shot. 

“Mabel’s loveable, we get it,” he said quickly, hopping forward. “Look,” he told Jeff, “Stan saved your butts from those zombies. Even if you don’t like us, you owe him.”

The gnomes mulled it over. Jeff turned to a handful of grey-bearded ones who looked slightly familiar— was one of them Carson?— and they huddled together in a little dome, muttering and mumbling, before the circle broke and they stood at attention again. 

Jeff cleared his throat. “All right,” he said, holding out a hand. “we’ll help you. But this is just a one-time thing,” he added before Mabel could start squealing. “After this it’s back to the kidnapping, got it?” 

Mabel took his hand and shook it. “Deal.” 

* * *

Consciousness came slowly and painfully. Stan was suddenly and vividly aware of an ache stretching through every muscle of his body; breathing itself made them sigh with pain, gentle yet persistent. His head was spinning, his shoulder was throbbing, and when he lifted his arm to assess the damage, it too betrayed him, igniting in pain.

“Oh— ow,” he groaned, dropping his arm back to his side in defeat. “Everything hurts.” 

“Boss!” someone said behind him.

“Told you he’d come around soon,” someone said to his left. 

_“Ohmygosh you’re awake!”_ someone said, inches from his face. He had a split second to blink his eyes open and take in what looked like firelight before something landed on his chest, pushing him backwards into the… plush cushions? 

It was one of the kids— the girl. Memories returned in a flash; the boy, Ford’s journal, the flash of movement out the window. The zombies. The kids. 

They were safe. Stan wasn’t sure why that filled him with so much relief.

“How do you feel?” the girl demanded, grabbing his chest fur and pulling it in all directions. “We told the gnomes to be gentle but I think they bonked your head on a couple rocks anyway. Does your head hurt? My head hurts, but I think that might be because one of the zombies pulled my hair.”

“I—” Stan said. The room swam into focus around him; he was lying on a couch, the couch he thought he remembered being somewhere on the third floor. Or perhaps the second. Something _crackled_ in the fireplace, and he felt a fresh wave of warmth wash over him from head to toe. 

Wendy was leaning on the left side of the fireplace. Her arms were crossed casually, but Stan couldn’t help noticing that her fingers curled into tight fists. She was holding his cape— at least, what was left of it. Even from where he lay on the couch, Stan could tell it was ruined beyond repair. Even if he bothered to make Soos wash out the stains and stitch the thing back together, it would never be the same.

In lieu of his cape, a thick woolen blanket was draped over his legs. And the girl was sitting on top of it. She poked his chest.

“Are you dizzy? Do you remember everything, or is it all just a big blur?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips. 

“Mabel,” a quieter voice said. The girl’s brother appeared at her side and tried to pry her away. “Give him some space.” 

“Dipper, this is important!” Brushing her brother off, Mabel returned to Stan’s fur, tugging and inspecting it as if she were searching for something, all the while babbling nonstop. “Soos says you got bitten, so does that mean you’re a zombie monster now? That’d be so _awesome—_ I mean, being a regular monster is already cool, but—” 

Stan barely had time to register that someone had just called him both a _monster_ and _cool_ in the same sentence— before a stinging pain shot through his shoulder again and he hissed, flinching. 

“Sorry, dude,” Soos’s voice said from behind his ear. And Stan realized there were hands on his shoulder, and that those hands were poking into a particularly painful wound. “This is gonna sting a little.” 

“Thanks for the warning,” Stan groaned. He blinked at Mabel. “Uh, I’m fine. No… brain cravings so far.”

Mabel looked supremely disappointed. Her brother— Dipper, apparently— sighed in relief. 

“The bite didn’t break the skin through your, um. Fur,” he said awkwardly. 

Their eyes met, and Stan knew at once that they were both remembering what had happened in the west wing. Dipper took a tiny step back. Stan bit back a sigh, trying not to think about how close he’d come to accidentally scalping the poor kid, how his claws had torn through the air, torn through the wallpaper, torn the parchment straight from Ford’s journal. 

He could still feel the dust between his fingers and the ache in his heart.

The fireplace _cracked_ and he shifted, trying to look at anything other than his own hands.

 _“Augh!”_ he cried, as his shoulder exploded in pain. “Soos, quit it, that _hurts.”_

“Sorry, Boss,” Soos said. He began to pat Stan’s shoulder affectionately, sending shocks of pain through Stan’s body with every hit.

“I said _stop,”_ Stan growled. He tried to smack Soos’s hand away, but the instant he moved his arm it flared in pain again and he couldn’t quite hold back a roar. 

Dipper tutted. “Maybe if you held still, it wouldn’t hurt as much.” 

Oh, this was rich. How long had he felt sympathy for this kid? Two minutes? That was more than enough. Stan raised an eyebrow, huffing a breath through his teeth. “If you knuckleheads hadn’t run off into the woods, I wouldn’t have had to come save you, and _this—”_ he jerked a thumb to his shoulder, ignoring the pain— “wouldn’t have happened.”

“If you hadn’t nearly _killed_ me, I wouldn’t have run away,” Dipper snapped. Stan carefully hid his surprise. The kid had guts.

He scoffed and folded his arms, sinking an inch or so into the couch. “You’re just lucky I saw you through the window. S’ your fault for snooping in the west wing, anyway. I told you not to—” 

Mabel tugged hard on his fur, adding to the serving platter of pain that was his entire body. “You still shouldn’t have scared Dipper!”

Dipper hissed Mabel’s name under his breath and tried once again to pry her away, but she held fast. The kids shared a glance: Dipper’s face was tight with worry, but betrayed a trace of gratitude. Mabel’s was stubborn and unyielding. 

It was like looking into a cruel, wicked mirror designed only to remind him of everything he’d lost.

Decades might have passed, but Stan could still call up the sense-memory of protecting his brother like that, be it from monsters or men. He could still feel flames in his fists— metaphorical ones, he’d never been the sorcerer between them. He could still hear their laughter, similar but distinct, dampered by nothing. He could still see his brother’s eyes, worried yet thankful— 

The memory warped before he could stop it, and Ford’s eyes turned cold and merciless.

Mabel toppled to the floor as Stan’s shoulders jerked suddenly, the movement pulling him out of his head. Soos’s fingers dug into his wound, deeper than ever before, and for a moment Stan was sure he’d punch through to the other side, but— 

“Aha!” Soos cried, wrenching his hand out. It made an awful wet noise, and everyone in the room cringed. Except Soos. “Got it!” he declared, and held up something very small.

Dipper’s eyes went wide. Mabel put her hands to her mouth and gasped— though it sounded more like excitement than horror. 

Wendy dropped Stan’s tattered cape. “Is that…?” She snatched the little white tooth out of Soos’s hand. “Whoa.”

Mabel beamed _. “Gross!”_

She, Wendy, and Soos all clustered together to inspect the tooth by the firelight, debating on who should keep it. Soos had the most legitimate claim, but Mabel had the most gumption. So Wendy slipped it into her pocket when they weren’t looking. 

Dipper just watched the fireplace silently.

Out of the corner of his eye, Stan watched his face morph through a dozen different emotions. Fear made a return. Disgust was quick to follow, and was that anger that chased it? And then he settled at last on a quiet, thoughtful expression, and turned back to Stan. 

“You did save us out there,” he said quietly. “So.” His eyes darted back to the fireplace. “Thank you.”

Stan blinked. 

It was uncanny. Everything from Dipper’s lack of eye contact to the way he stuffed his hands in his pockets reminded Stan of himself. Even the way his eyebrows furrowed, like he was determined to stand his ground despite every point of logic against him. He had Stan’s pride— and even his sister carried the reckless optimism that had flowed through Stan’s veins for seventeen years. 

Memories emerged from the woodwork of his mind, memories he hadn’t allowed himself to relive in decades. 

It was foolish to think, but Stan couldn’t keep from wondering whether the children had been sent here for a reason. 

Every brick of this castle was a mystery. Magic lined the walls, the grounds, even the air, and Stan understood none of it. But whatever the reason, be it Ford’s magic or some unexplainable force, the people that wound up here usually found what they were looking for somewhere within the walls.

Except him. 

Mabel coughed. Stan blinked, and the fireplace swam back into focus: everyone was staring at him. Mabel was holding the arms of her stolen sweater, which looked like it had finally dried from the storm.

Stan’s cape lay at their feet. It, too, had been stolen once upon a time. 

He cleared his throat. “You’re,” he said, and had to work very hard to say the next word. “Welcome.”

This had the expected effect. Dipper smiled shyly, Mabel beamed again, and Wendy and Soos dropped their jaws— they hadn’t heard him say a single polite word in at least three months, if not years.

Stan cleared his throat, trying to add as much gruffness to the sound as possible. It was difficult to look intimidating when he was lying on a couch with a blanket over his feet. He still managed. 

“All right, here’s the deal.” 

Dipper and Mabel snapped to attention. 

“You can stay in the attic and work in the castle,” Stan told them, and waited for their reactions. Mabel bounced on the balls of her feet, biting her bottom lip and emitting a faint, high-pitched sound. Even Dipper couldn’t hide a trace of disbelief and happiness. “But,” Stan added, at just the right time to make their faces fall. “If you stay, you follow my rules.” He glared at Dipper. “You do the work I give you.” He glared at Mabel. “And you _stay inside.”_

Mabel didn’t so much as bat an eye. Dipper, however, narrowed his. “What do you mean?” 

“It’s not safe out there,” Stan said, huffing. “There’s weird stuff in that forest, and the one thing I know about that weird stuff is that it’s dangerous.” He glanced at his shoulder, and the kids glanced at it too.

“If you wanna leave, be my guest,” Stan added, raising an eyebrow at them. “But don’t come back.”

The kids looked at each other. 

Stan closed his eyes for a minute to keep from getting sick; the room had begun to spin somewhere in the middle of his speech. He wasn’t worried; he’d been injured before— without the added benefit of an eight-foot stature and a thick pelt of fur to protect him— and he’d pulled through just fine. 

Meanwhile, the kids were mulling it over. Stan cracked an eye open to watch them. 

“I—” Dipper stammered. “I mean— it _is_ better than running from a nine-year-old on a horse.” He clutched his coat like he was holding something precious, fingers curled around the bottom hem. “But I…”

“Dipper, come _on,”_ Mabel whispered, tugging Dipper’s sleeve. “This place is so _cool._ It’s got old paintings and swords everywhere and food and fireplaces and magic and beds— with _real pillows.”_

Stan’s heart twisted. 

Dipper sighed. Whatever had made him hesitate was losing steam, and fast. He bit his lip, chewed the inside of his cheek, fiddled with the hem of his coat again, and scuffed his shoe on the carpet before finally sighing and turning to Stan. 

“Okay,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “We’ll stay.”

“Great,” Stan said, and promptly lost consciousness. 

* * *

The moon rose once again over the town of Gravity Falls. Each night the crescent grew a little more, shone a little brighter, cast the shops and houses in a little more light.

Fiddleford McGucket slept fitfully. Summer wind blew through his house, a gentle silent breeze from the south. And then the wind shifted, reversed, and a gust from the north slid its way through the gaps in his walls. It brushed his forehead and he woke, feeling the wind’s warning curling its way down his spine.

And then it was gone as soon as it had came, and he sank back to sleep. The memory of the wind slipped away, his mind letting go with practiced ease. 

Below him, the town slept much more soundly. No one lay awake in the dark, hunched over a gold-embossed journal, palm over the open pages. No one waited until the moon crested over the faint mountains, throwing the town into complete darkness once again until sunlight came to claim it. No one watched the windows for a sign of movement from the trees, fingertips twitching. 

No one except Gideon Gleeful, who tore the parchment in vexation, pressed it to a furious ball under his palms, and threw it into a pile with its brothers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bhdk l nqrz crpelhv duh lq mrxuqdo 3 qrw 2, exw eloo’v vxpprqlqj flufoh lv lq mrxuqdo 2 qrw 1, dqg vwdq xvhv 1 wr vxpprq klp vr bnqrz zkdw zh’uh doo jrqqd sxw rq rxu elj erb sdqwv dqg ghdo zlwk lw](http://themysteryofgravityfalls.com/)


End file.
